JAPANESE GENERAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 113, 9 November 1937, Page 9

JAPANESE GENERAL

SURPRISE LANDING NEAR

SHANGHAI

NEW FRONT FORMED

THREAT TO KEY POINT

United Tress Association— By Electric TeleBraph—Copyright.

LONDON, November 8.

The Shanghai correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph" reports that Japanese marines, by making a surprise landing on the five-mile beach at Chapoo, in Hangchow Bay, opened the way for several infantry divisions with artillery. The manoeuvre was brilliantly planned and executed with the aid of 180 armed launches shrouded in heavy mist at dawn and under the protection of warships and warplanes. General Yanagawa, brought back from political retirement, commanded the operation, and the commander-in-chief, LieutenantColonel Matsui, controlled the participating units. The Chinese, in the absence of attacks earlier in the campaign, had withdrawn from their excellent trenches and fortifications to strengthen the Shanghai front. The landing parties found the trenches empty. They swept on through the rain-laden gale to the Whangpoo River and formed a strong front between Minhong and Sunkiang, firing on a British travelling party en route. They crossed the Whangpoo and advanced to within 12 miles of Shanghai, threatening the Chinese key point of Lunghwa. POOTUNG GARRISON MENACED. The Japanese troops in the Shanghai area exceed 150,000. They threaten to cut off the garrison at Pootung, on the eastern side of the river, unless an evacuation is successfully completed. ■■ ' The only contact the Chinese troops have with Shanghai is to the westward, where the Japanese / menace them in the front and the rear. This may compel an early retreat. There is, however, no sign of a collapse of the Chinese morale. Foreign military officials report that the Chinese have evacuated Pootung. Dozens of Japanese planes are bombing and machine-gunning the Chinese lines west of Shanghai as far as Sungkiang, while the Japanese are moving from the south closer to Sungkiang, where the southern end of the Chinese line is situated. The movements are the beginning of the Japanese attempt to fulfil the prediction that- they will isolate the Chinese from Shanghai before Tuesday evening.