JAPANESE AIR FORCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 June 1942, Page 4

JAPANESE AIR FORCE

FIVE HUNDRED PLANES IN BURAIA AND 300 IN CHINA MANY NEW AERODROMES IN MANCHUKUO. SOME CHUNGKING ESTIMATES. (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) CHUNGKING, June 18. Army intelligence reports indicate that Japan, has concentrated 500 planes in Burma and 300 in China, says the Associated Press of America's correspondent. Chinese officials discount reports that the Japanese have shifted many planes from Burma to Manchukuo. However, it is pointed out that many new Manchukuo aerodromes are ready to receive, at the eleventh hour, reinforcements for an assault on Siberia. Troops recently returned from Malaya, the Philippines and the Netherlands East Indies have restored the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo to its full strength of thirty-three divisions. IN EASTERN CHINA CONTINUED ENEMY DRIVE. (Received This Day, 12.20 p.m.) CHUNGKING, June 18. A Japanese task force, supplementing the pincer movement on the Che-kiang-Kiangsi Railway, has driven eight miles southward from Kwangfen and is threatening Chinese inland bases in Fukien Province, according to a Chinese spokesman. All but fifty miles of the railway is now controlled by the enemy. Meanwhile the Chinese are increasing their pressure against outposts screening Nanchang, where heavy Japanese reinforcements are appearing. ,