CHINESE SUCCESS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 June 1943, Page 4

CHINESE SUCCESS

ANOTHER YANGTSE TOWN CAPTURED GENERAL STILLWELL'S SURVEY OF OUTLOOK. HARD JOB BEING TACKLED WITH DETERMINATION. (By Telegranh—Press Association—Copyright) CHUNGKING, June 15. The Chinese have gained a fresh success, throwing the Japanese back along the upper Yangtse River front. The Chinese captured another town, 60 miles below the main Japanese base at Ichang, and half the enemy garrison was wiped out. Fighting is in progress for Sinyang, on the Peking-Hankow railway. The Commander of the American forces in China, India and Burma, Lieu-tenant-General Stillwell, addressing a Press conference in Chungking said: "We have a hell of a hard job ahead in crushing Japan, but the United Nations are thoroughly determined to do the job as soon as possible. At Washington, China’s needs are thoroughly considered. There is a constant interchange of information between the Allied leaders, China and those in the South-west Pacific. We have a savage enemy and there is plenty of him, but we are thoroughly determined to get after him.”

POISON GAS JAPANESE PREPARATIONS. SIGNS OF COMING OFFENSIVE IN YUNNAN. (Received This Day, Noon.) CHUNGKING, June 16. The Chinese, giving the Japanese little chance to reorganise after their crushing defeat in the Yangtse area have disrupted enemy communications with Yochow. In attacks on the Hankow-Canton Railway, the Chinese are now massing forces to drive the Japanese from Hwajung and Shihshow. A Chinese military spokesman stated that there were indications of a new Japanese offensive in Western Yunnan, from Burma. He asserted that the Japanese apparently are preparing to use poison gas, as a Japanese ship unloaded 120 cases of gas containers and fifty tons of gas shells at Woosung, near Shanghai, in the middle of last month, Japanese planes, he added, dropped gas bombs on a Suiyuan village on May 31, and on the following day Japanese artillery fired gas shells at a Shansi village. Reviewing the Upper Yangtse battle, the spokesman estimated that the Japanese had employed 100,000 men. The Chinese forces were only slightly greater.