PRICE IN LIVES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 March 1943, Page 3

PRICE IN LIVES

PAID BY THE JAPANESE FOR INVASION OF CHINA. TWO & A HALF MILLION DEAD. (British Official Wireless.) (Received This Day, 9.55 a.m.) RUGBY, March 15. It is announced that since the beginning of the war and up to the end of last year, two and a half million Japanese had been killed in the war against China, states a Chungking message. It is added that the Japanese on the Salween front suffered 1,500 casualties. The Chinese, pursuing the fleeing enemy to the south on the west bank of the Salween, captured two more important towns. COLLAPSE REPORTED OF JAPANESE YANGTSE OFFENSIVE. ENEMY TROOPS ENCIRCLED. (Received This Day, 11.5 a.m.) CHUNGKING, March 15. The big Japanese offensive which began on March 3 on ?. hundred mile stretch of the Yangtse River, from Yochow, has collapsed, with 20,000 Japanese troops mostly under harassing retreat, says today’s Chinese communique. One body of Japanese has been surrounded and another is almost encircled. Chinese forces on the northern bank of the Yangtse have launched an extensive counter-attack. The communique commented: “The collapse of this offensive, which was designed to protect enemy communications along the Yangtse, has greatly lessened the danger of another Japanese drive against Changsha.”