GUARDED BORDER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 5 August 1941, Page 5

GUARDED BORDER

STRONG BRITISH FORCES IN MALAYA FORMIDABLE EQUIPMENT. REPORTED JAPANESE DEMANDS ON THAILAND. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) LONDON, August 4. The Saigon correspondent of the Associated Press of Great Britain says Britain has placed thousands of the finest troops, mainly Australians and the best Indian regiments, on the Malaya-Thailand border in expectation of trouble with the Japanese. They are fully equipped, not only with tanks and heavy artillery, but also with secret weapons specially designed for jungle warfare. Everywhere along the border are British forces, including an air force, and the British are preparing accommodation for thousands of additional Australian infantrymen. Well-informed circles in Bangkok assert that Japan is demanding bases in Thailand and access to raw materials. In the meantime Thai armies are pouring into the border zones. Military observers in Shanghai regard the garrisoning of 40,000 Japanese and 400 planes in southern IndoChina as too large for purposes other than expansion. The Japanese Vice-Admiral Niimi has arrived at Saigon to .confer with the French military and naval officials. Thousands of additional Japanese troops have arrived there and .also large stocks of munitions and gasoline.

PERSISTENT REPORTS OF FIGHTING ON AMUR. WITH HEAVY JAPANESE CASUALTIES. LONDON. August 4. A Shanghai' message states that it is persistently reported that Japanese and Russian forces were engaged on large-scale hostilities on the Amur River over the weekend. The Japanese

are reported to have suffered 1500 casualties. The Hongkong correspondent of the Associated Press says the Chinese Press reported that the Japanese seized the customs at Kwangchowan in the French leased territory in the Southern Kwangtung province. The Chinese Central Nows reports that the Chinese have recaptured Chaoyang.