JAPANESE ADVANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 122, 19 November 1937, Page 9

JAPANESE ADVANCE

KASHING ENTERED

THE SOOCHOW AREA

CHINESE WITHDRAWING

(Received November 19, 11 a.m.)

SHANGHAI, November 18. \ The Japanese claim to have entered Kashing on the railway line between Shanghai and Hangchow. It is also claimed that a detachment advancing from Kunshan has occupied Mengchiangmiao, half-way between Kunshun and Soochow.

The Japanese air reconnaissance reported that it is revealed that the Chinese have begun a withdrawal from 'Soochow northwards. The Chinese claim that reinforcements in the' Kunshan area, west of Shanghai, have succeeded in holding up the Japanese advance fifteen miles east of Soochow. Foreign military attaches estimate that General Chiang Kai-shek has 400,000 troops defending a line 85 miles long west and north of Shanghai.

English and American owners who visited their homes in the Hungjao Road "area found that the Japanese troops had looted them; though the homes were flying the British and American flags.

The British United Press correspondent in Sbansi Province describes the province as. a hell on earth. Many towns are in blapkened ruins and the Chinese forces are killing horses and mules for food, '