SUCHOW CONFLICT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 May 1938, Page 7

SUCHOW CONFLICT

JAPANESE REPORT ENORMOUS CHINESE LOSSES Claim that Twenty Divisions Are Encircled WAR MINISTER’S STATEMENT TO CABINET By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Recd This Day, 9.40 a.m.) TOKIO, May 24. An Imperial army headquarters communique states that investigations suggest that the Chinese suffered 200,000 casualties around Suchow including 60,000 killed. The Minister for War, General G. Sugiyama, informed Cabinet that twenty Chinese divisions were encircled. CHINESE NOT TRAPPED MR W. H. DONALD’S ACCOUNT OF POSITION. POLICY OF WEARING DOWN JAPANESE. (Recd This Day, 9.40 a.m.) HONG KONG, May 24. Mr W. H. Donald, the Australian-born confidential adviser to the Chinese Generalissimo, Marshal Chiang Kai-shek, has telegraphed that Chiang Kai-shek’s withdrawal from Suchow is in accordance with the policy of wearing down the Japanese by exhaustion and retaining the Chinese initiative. The occupation of Suchow w aa extremely costly to Japan, who has insufficient men to entrap the Chinese. CAPTURED BY CHINESE. TOWN NORTH-WEST OF PEKING. HANKOW, May 24. Sweeping down from Inner Mongolia, Chinese troops claim to have captured Changping, 25 miles north-west of Peking. Fighting continues on the Lung Hai Railway west of Suchow.