HANKOW’S PROSPECTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 August 1938, Page 7

HANKOW’S PROSPECTS

PROGRESS OF THE JAPANESE DRIVE EFFORT TO AVOID WINTER CAMPAIGN. CANTON RAILWAY SEVERED. By Telegraph —Press Association. Copyright. LONDON, August 28. The Chinese believe that Hankow will hold out for six months, but foreigners believe that it will fall before the middle of November. The Japanese estimate that 800,000 Chinese are holding Hankow’s double line of defences but lack artillery tc deal with Japanese naval guns from the Yangtse. The Japanese are mustering a fullstrength attack on Hankow to avoid a winter campaign, but are hampered by heat, sickness and the difficult terrain. The Shanghai correspondent of “The Times” states that following the Japanese attack on the international aircraft over the Canton Delta on August 24, a German-Chinese airline has suspended its service from Hong Kong tc Hankow. The China National Company had already ceased its service.

Continuous bombing has severed the railway resulting in Hankow being temporarily isolated. CHINESE CLAIM, THREAT TO JAPANESE BASE. SHANGHAI, August 29. The Chinese assert that by the recapture of Tsienshan and Taihu, north of Kiugian, they crashed through the Japanese centres, and now threaten Anking, the Japanese base for the drive to Hankow. Half a million men are now engaged on the Yangtse front.