PRICE OF VICTORY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1943, Page 4

PRICE OF VICTORY

IN CHANGTEH BATTLE NOT CONSIDERED TOO HIGH. RESULTS OF FAR-REACHING IMPORTANCE. |By Telegraph—Press Association —Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.55 a.m.) CHUNGKING, December 13. The Japanese are retiring, under Chinese- pressure, at the rate of about ten miles daily south of the Lin River and will soon be cleared entirely from the southern half of the Rice Bowl, said an Army spokesman, Major-Gen-eral Tseng. Only two pockets of Japanese resistance remain in the Rice Bowl area, one north-east of Linli and the other north-west of that town. General Hsueh Yueh, war commander in Northern Hunan, told the Press that while the battle of Changteh had cost the Chinese 14,000 casualties against the Japanese 11,000, it was a pivotal success for the whole United Nations strategy in the Pacific region. Emphasising the strategic importance of Changteh, although it had been reduced to ruins in one of the bloodiest battles of the whole Sino-Japanese war, General Hsueh explained that Changteh is a military gateway west of Tungting Lake. It was the most inviting route for the Japanese towards Changsha, which thrice previously had been defended successfully. Changsha is'one of the principal stations on the Hankow-Canton Railway, the middle section of which is now the backbone of China’s transportation system. The Japanese hold lengths of this line at its northern and southern ends. If the Japanese could break through at Changteh they would get the entire railway line in their hands. They could then nullify any Allied threat to Japanese sea communications by moving troops and supplies overland the whole distance from Northern China to Hong Kong. General Hsueh said that the full exploitation of such a break through would mean the bisection of Free China, the loss of a main railway system and a vast impairment of China as a future base of attack against Japan. The urgency of the Japanese strategy was indicated by their using poison gas.

General Hsueh said the Japanese raped and wantonly killed women and children and engaged in plundering and incendiarism everywhere. He concluded that current Japanese strategy was not equal to that of 1941. ■ The morale of Japanese soldiers was lower than at any time in the past six years. Mr Churchill’s personal representative to President Chiang Kai-shek, Lieutenant-General Dewiart, accompanied by his staff officers, has arrived.