JAPANESE FEARS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 July 1942, Page 3

JAPANESE FEARS

OF USE OF TERRITORY BY UNITED NATIONS REASON FOR OFFENSIVE IN CHINA. ORGANISATION OF 20 DIVISIONS REPORTED. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) CHUNGKING, July 15. Admitting that the Japanese had captured Wenchow, a Chinese spokesman said the enemy had also taken Juian, twelve miles south-westward. Porthead and Deep Bay had also fallen to the enemy. These operations, like the Japanese activities against Fukien and Foochow, arose from a fear of the potential use of areas by the United Nations. The spokesman asserted that the Japanese were organising twenty new divisions in China, which was evidence of bigger ambitions, but said he did not know where or when they would strike. A Chinese communique reports that Japanese troops who moved southwards from Patuchen, in Eastern Kiangsi, suffered heavy losses and retreated. All Japanese attacks have been stopped eastward of the Yuhuct Mountains. The Japanese have been in retreat since July 11. Fighting is now centred around Linchwan. | The Central News Agency reported that forty Japanese and Chinese puppet officials were killed when. Formosan revolutionaries tossed bombs into a park at Amoy, during exercises commemorating the establishment of the puppet government. The casualties included an unidentified high Japanese official.