JAPANESE IN JEHOL

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 48, 27 February 1933, Page 7

JAPANESE IN JEHOL

CLEARING A PEOTTNCE

SUCCESS ALREADY CLAIMED

ADVANCE CONTINUES

Onlt«j Pres» Association—Bj Electrlo Teleerapb—CopKlcht LONDON, February 26. The beginning of the long-pre-pared Japanese drive to clear the Province of Jehol of hostile forces is reported in an official statement from the Japanese War Office at Tokio. It is claimed that already the towns of Pehpiao and Kailu had been recovered from the enemy.. The- Japanese and Manchukuo troops were perfectly co-operating, and were! confident of success. Numerous bands of Marshal Chang Hsueh-Liang's volunteers were surrendering and offering allegiance to Manchukuo. • ' The Manchukuo-Japanese advance is continuing in all sectors according to schedule. Numerous towns were occupied today (Sunday), despite blizzards. '■.: Transports are evacuating Japanese civilians from the Chingwantao-Shan-haikuan district to Tientsin. "The -Times" correspondent at Peking reports that a Chinese communique . states that Japanese and Manchukuo troops started a major offensive, driving westward towards Lingyuan in two-columns based respectively on Chaoyang and Suichung. There was serious fighting on Friday afternoon in the vicinity of Cbaoyang,' which was still held by Chinese at 9 o'clock that night, and at Lingyuan, where two Chinese brigades axe stu.fr bornly resisting. Communication with &ailu is interrupted, but it is believed that the Japanese simultaneously launched an attack in that region, causing General Tang Yu-lin to rush reinforcements through the Chihfeng pass.