SIX-HOUR BATTLE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 4 August 1938, Page 8

SIX-HOUR BATTLE

VET ANOTHER ATTACK MADE ON CHANGKUFENG TANKS AND HOWITZERS USED. AIR RAID PRECAUTIONS IN JAPAN. By Telegraph—Press Association. Copyright. (Reed This Day, 12.40 p.m.) TOKIO. August 3. Using tadks, howitzers and quickfirers, the Russians and Japanese fought for six hours today, during a second abortive attempt by the Soviet to recapture Changkufeng. The Japanese claim that Soviet planes bombed the Japanese lines, the Soviet artillery bombarding Kojo from Mayoshan. six miles distant. The War Office announces that 30 Japanese have been .killed and 67 wounded since July 29 and estimates the Soviet losses at 250. Air raid precautions, including the banning of advertising lights. have been extended throughout Tokio and fourteen other prefectures. SOVIET BROADCASTS JAPANESE MILITARISTS DENOUNCED. WILL BE DESTROYED LIKE VERMIN.' (Recd This Day, 12.40 p.m.) LONDON, August 3. Broadcasts from : Moscow received in London claim that the crisis is due to the Japanese being goaded into action by the militarists. The Soviet is prepared for emergencies, it is declared and will find it “very easy to curb the bloodthirsty appetites of the Japanese militarists and destroy them like vermin.” AVOIDING WAR REPORTED INCLINATION ON BOTH SIDES BUT PROPAGANDA INVOKED IN RUSSIA (Rccd This Day, 1.15 p.m.) LONDON, August 3. The “Times” Riga correspondent says mass meeting resolutions defying Japan are pouring in. The Soviet considers . that a settlement is likely or at least that the dispute will remain in abeyance, similarly to dozens of recent lesser Soviet-Japanese disputes. M Litvinoff is reported to be pressing for a settlement of the frontier line requiring meanwhile the withdrawal from Changkufeng. The “Daily Telegraph’s” Tokio correspondent says the opinion prevail: that Japan intends to avoid war if thir can be achieved without loss of prestige.

The “Telegraph’s" Moscow correspondent says fighting continues without advantage to either- side, but has not spread to other sectors of the Eastern front. A new and graver factor introduced to Moscow today was the putting into gear of the immense machine of popular propaganda by the Soviet Press. Almost the entire space was devoted to standardised mass resolutions, couched in fierce language.