JAPANESE OFFENSIVE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 February 1943, Page 2

JAPANESE OFFENSIVE

OPERATIONS IN SEVEN AREAS SERIES OF DRIVES. CHINESE STUBBONLY RESISTING. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, February 18. The Japanese have begun attacks in seven widely separated areas from the lake country north of Shanghai to the jungles of Yunnan Province in ‘the far south, apparently hoping to end the Chinese resistance, says the Chungking correspondent of the Associated Press of America. Not since May, when the Japanese simultaneously pushed up the Burma Road and made the twin-headed drive and several lodgements on the Fukien coast have the Japanese shown such great and co-ordinated activity. A Chinese spokesman today said that as yet there was no indication that the current operations were a prelude to a great offensive. Probably they Were motivated by a desire to disipate the Chinese strength. A Japanese Army spokesman in Tokio today referred to the new offensive in central China as a start toward Japan’s five-year-old dream of putting all China under the puppet regime at Nanking. The latest Chungking communique states that the Japanese, after bringing up 10,000 reinforcements from Lashio, began an offensive in south-west-ern Yunnan, where they have made some gains. Heavy fighting is continuing. An earlier Chinese communique said that Japanese troops landed in the territory of Kwang-Chowan on Monday from five warships. Landings were also made at Luichow, Tungming, and on Tanghai Island. The Chinese were sternly resisting outside French territory. A Chinese Army spokesman reports that the Japanese forces which launched a series of drives round Canton a week ago have been beaten back. The Japanese are fleeing to their bases. Howerver, the fighting in central Hupeh is growing in intensity, he said. The Japanese, conducting a carefullyprepared operation, have made appreciable progress, but the Chinese recovered territory at some points. A new Japanese offensive is reported in the Yengcheng sector of Kiangsi Province, where the enemy planes are assisting the land forces and attacking guerriaal strongholds. There have been heavy casualties bn both sides. The Japanese, moving in from four directions, have almost finished the occupation of Kwang-Chowan Bay, in Annam, 250 miles south-west of Hong Kong, says the United Press correspondent. Kwang-Chowan Bay previously was administered by French Indo-Chi-na and is the most important naval harbour on the China coast and the last to fall into Japanese hands.