TURN IN HONAN

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 203, 25 May 1944, Page 5

TURN IN HONAN

Chinese CounterOffensive

ATTACK ON FLANK

(By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Received May 24, 7 p.m.) NEW YORK, May 23.

The Chinese in northern Honan Province have opened a great counteroffensive, driving the Japanese back over wide areas at all key points and attacking the Japanese flank east of the Peiping-Hankow railway, says a Chungking communique. The Chinese have already -breached the enemy lines at half-a-dozen points and are making further headway.

The communique declares that the counter-offensive has removed for the present the- possibility of a major frontal clash between the Chinese and Japanese armies. The Chungking correspondent of the National Broadcasting Corporation reports tliat the Japanese are retreating on all sectors in Honan Province. Tne Chinese have found the Japanese lines very thinly manned. OLD BURMaTrOAD CUT BY CHINESE Japanese Base Isolated LONDON, May 24. Chinese forces striking out for the Burma border from the Salween River have cut the old Burma Road at Chefang, 28 miles from the Burma frontier, says a communique from Chungking. This success has isolated the main Japanese base of Lungling by cutting its supply route from Mandalay. The Japanese garrison at Chefang was wiped out. The seizure of Myitkyina aerodrome and the Allied crossing of the Irrawaddy River are likely to yield increasing aid to China because they open up a less dangerous southern air route from Assam to Kunming, permitting the flying of cargoes over a terrain where the hump slopes away from the Himalayan heights, says the Associated Press Kandy correspondent. It was formerly necessary to fly at 21,000 feet to avoid weather-bound peaks, whereas instrument flying at 14,000 feet is possible over the new route. Reuter’s Ceylon correspondent, in a review of the recent fighting, says the operations around Kohima have confirmed the removal of any threat against the Allied communications in the Brahmaputra Valley. The Japanese have been cleared from ridges overlooking Kohima from the south and south-west and from Treasury Ridge, in the north. The Japanese are on the defensive and seem to intend to offer -determined resistance to any offensive from Kohima southward. The Japanese have lost 7600 killed in the fighting on the Manipur front, says the British United Press correspondent at South-east Asia Command Headquarters. The bombing of the enemy supply lines is increasing their difficulties of supplying their forward troops. Japanese reports today mention the strength of the opposition in contrast with the tone of the Tokio reports last month when a triumphant sweep into India was forecast. General -Stilwell’s communique reports that heavy rains are delaying the operations at Myitkyina. The situation is materially unchanged. Japanese pockets of troops are resisting savagely, but ere slowly being eliminated. Secret Fighter Methods.

Using startlingly successful secret methods, long-range Mustangs and Lightnings of the Third Tactical Air Force in the last 10 weeks destroyed 78 Japanese planes in combat over an enemy airfield in Burma and 135 on the ground, reports the Associated Press correspondent at Kandy. Another 31 enemy planes were probably destroyed and 58 were damaged. Only three American fighters have been lost. A spokesman declared that the Japanese have yet to find the answer to this completely new phase of the air war in Burma. Despite his losses, the enemy must maintain his forward airfields to support his troops or withdraw southward from the forward areas.

HELICOPTERS USED IN BURMA (Received May 24. 7 p.m.) CALCUTTA. May 23.. American units with the Eastern Air Command are using helicopters for the air-borne invasion of Burma. Pilots who were selected after a special course at the Sikorski factory arrived in India m January with helicopters, ground crews and technicians.