HEAVY SETBACKS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 December 1942, Page 3

HEAVY SETBACKS

SUFFERED BV JAPANESE IN SOUTH CHINA ENEMY PREPARATIONS FOR ATTACK ALONG BURMA ROAD. (By Telegraph—(Press Association—Copyright) CHUNGKING, December 15. A Chinese communique says that Chinese forces beat off an attempt by three Japanese warships on December 8 to land troops on Liuchon Peninsula, in southern China, opposite Hainan Island. The warships, fully loaded with men and supplies, fled south. Japanese forces attempting to advance inland near Swatow, in Kwangtung Province, south-east China, were thrown back with heavy losses after two days’ fighting. A Chinese Government > spokesman told the Press that the Japanese forces in western Yunnan Province, in southwest China, number 30,000, and that probably two additional divisions will be sent before the Japanese make a further attempt to strike deep into China along the Burma Road. He explained that the recent Japanese operations formed an arc-shap-ed line 18 miles north and east of the enemy’s advance base at Tengyueh. In this fighting the Japanese intended to force a Chinese withdrawal to the east across the Salween River gorge, removing the threat to the Japanese flank if they succeeded in pushing into central Yunnan on the Burma Road. “Reports indicate,” he added, “that the Japanese intended launching an offensive on a large scale,” The Japanese used tanks in recent thrusts north from Tengyueh, which the Chinese repulsed, but no co-ordinated action by the Japanese air force has been reported.