FINAL VICTORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 July 1942, Page 3

FINAL VICTORY

WILL NEVER BE WITHIN JAPAN’S GRASP BUOYANT DECLARATION IN CHUNGKING. ENEMY CONCENTRATION IN FORMOSA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) CHUNGKING, June 30. A Government spokesman said: “The United Nations undoubtedly have enough material and human resources to offset the attempt by the Axis to reach a military decision in the next three months. China is still first on Japan’s conquest priority list, but China is confident that the enemy will fail to reach a decision. Japan may win local successes, but final victory will never be within Japan’s grasp.” According to the military spokesman, 50,000 Japanese troops from the Philippines are now concentrated in Formosa. The Chinese still control 50 miles of the Chekiang-Kiangsi railway. Bitter fighting is going on on the western slopes of the Taiheng mountains in southern Shansi. The Chinese High Command today admitted that Japanese forces have made some advances in the region 80 miles south of Nanchang. The fort-night-old bitter battle on the HonanShansi border is still raging, and both sides have suffered considerable losses. The Tokio radio declared that the captured sections of the ChekiangKiangsi railway have been_ repaired and are now serving as an important supply route for the Japanese. The radio added that three Chinese armies retreated southward from the railway after the Japanese attacked in a torrential rainstorm.

RAILWAY GAP

NARROWED BY JAPANESE. (Received This Day, 9.45 a.m.) CHUNGKING, July 1. A Chinese army spokesman admitted that the Japanese, since the recapture of Kweiki, have narrowed the gap m the Chekiang-Kiangsi railway to 25 miles. He denied the Japanese claim that the entire railway has been captured.

CAPTURE OF RAILWAY

CLAIMED BY JAPANESE. (Received This Day, 10.45 a.m.) NEW YORK, July 1. According to the Tokio official radio, the Domei Agency states that the Japanese effected a complete occupation of the Chekiang-Kiangsi railway on Wednesday, as vanguard units, driving from east to west, met in the town of Hengfeng. A Japanese column, striking eastward from lyang, smashed the Chinese entrenchments on a height west of the town, and simultaneously a column, moving west from Shangjao, reached the outskirts of Hengfeng, thus ending a month of the most bitter fighting in the Chinese campaign since .the fall of Hankow and Canton in 1938.