JAPANESE FORCES

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 69, 18 September 1937, Page 9

JAPANESE FORCES

NdRTH CHINA OFFENSIVE

CHINESE RETREAT

AWKWARD SITUATION

(United Press Association—By Electric

Telegraph—Copyright.)

(Received.September 18, noon.) TOKIO, September 17.

As a result of the northern offensive, the Japanese now occupy Chochow, 40 miles south-west of Peking, and also Sunglintien. The early annihilation of the Chinese troops who have been driven into the area south of Chochow is prophesied.

Important Japanese gains were secured today sixty hours after the battle opened. The Chinese, with reinforcements, gallantly contested the passage of the Chuma River and launched a number of counterattacks, but }rielded after fifteen hours' fighting, enabling the Japanese to take Sunglintien and Shanchiangsien. Chinese troops are strongly concentrated in Laishui, a walled town seven miles to the west, but the railway, which is in Japanese hands, lies between this and the defeated Chinese troops. i v The Chinese south of the Yungting River are still retreating, the Japanese having taken positions near Fangshan, where the Chinese are virtually marooned by the loss of the railway, being cut off by the mountains and separated from Liuli by six watercourses, the only road being dominated by Japanese, whose columns on the Shansi border are being rushed forward so rapidly that they may participate in Count Terauchi's plans for encircling the Chinese northern armies. They have reached Kwangchan, 100 miles south-east of Tatung. 100,000 CHINESE ISOLATED. The War Office at Tokio claims the Japanese advanced in the Chuma region 12 miles in twenty-four hours and have isolated 100,000 Chinese.

The Domei news agency reports that the Japanese deployed a 50-mile line and are converging on Paotingfu, and have broken the Chinese first line at several points and are now attacking the second, connecting Paoting, Jungcheng, and Hiunghsien. They have already occupied Chochow and Laiyuan.

The Japanese claim the complete domination of the air in North China and also the occupation, after a destroyer attack, of Chenniushan Island, near^ the 'Haichow terminus of the Lunghai, railway.