ENEMY THRUST IN MALAYA

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23538, 16 January 1942, Page 5

ENEMY THRUST IN MALAYA

Great Battle Predicted # DEFENCE OF SINGAPORE NEW YORK, January 14. "The Malayan forces followed the best course in falling back when the Japanese pressure became too great states the Singapore correspondent of the "New York Times. Thl ? w, t l £; drawing will halt, however, in the southern end of the peninsula, and along the more natural defence lines the British will make a stand which all reel will bar the Japanese way to S '-i a h P e° r flnal line will shorten complications, and in attacking it the Japanese will have behind them miles of wrecked railway and hjghwajs. The Japanese will also And bemseWcs facing fresh troops, who have been conditioning themselves and have been spoiling for a fight for many months "It will be a great show, this battle for Singapore. Into it the British, w.n throw everything they can mustei in this part of the world. There is no doubt that Japan is up against a % cry tough proposition." The correspondent states that the British evacuation from Perak and So angor. especially in the immediate vicinity of Kuala Lumpur, was accompanied by the most wholesale applica no" of the scorched earth policy yet carried out in Malaya I" £«e two States millions of dollars woith of rubber stocks and rubber Processing machinery were destroyed as he Bn ish attempted to deny the Japanese the output of the most important raw materials of warfare. Millions more dollars worth of petroleum products, copra, coal docks, ship? small factories, power stations. brtSges and railway were likewise burned or blasted into *The Japanese will be unable to obtain much tin from the occupied areas far some time, since all the elaborate Sredgins equipment has been wrecked. UmL of the most costly demolimgoi was the destruction Sthe Baturang Collieries 3 rrnle*, Sorth of Kuala Lumpur, and the only nportant coal mines in Malaya Tht Tokyo official radio said that the

Japanese forces driving on Singapore have reached a point 62 miles south of Kuala Lumpur, and are now battering at the now British defence line between Port Dickson and Seremban. The announcer quoted the Japanese Domei News Agency as saying that the British are hurriedly building new defence positions to prevent a thrust to Malacca, the control of which would give the Japanese command o i the Malacca Strait*.