"LUDICROUS"

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 112, 15 May 1939, Page 9

"LUDICROUS"

REPORTS DISCOUNTED

The following, cablegram was received by the Chinese Consulate-Gen-eral from Chungking:—

"The. spokesman for the Military Affairs Commission said that the enemy's statement that they surrounded over 20 divisions of Chinese troops at Fanchen and Shiangyang in central Hupeh Province, and that these Chinese troops are about to be annihilated is ludicrous in the extreme. In the first place, the territory in which the enemy claims, to have surrounded our troops is a continuous range of mountains over a hundred kilometres from east to west and over 170 kilometres from north to south. Such a tremendous body of Chinese troops, and such a wide expanse of mountainous territory strategically situated it is impossible for two* or three Japanese divisions to complete an enveloping movement. Secondly, as a matter of fact, the enemy's , forces in Hupeh Province are weak. Moreover, they ('have suffered heavy losses. Over a thousand were killed in the enemy's right wing; a whole division were killed in the centre, and heavy losses were sustained by the enemy on their left wing. The enemy's claim that they surrounded our iroops'is contrary to facts. "The enemy's planes again bombed Chungking; Three of them were shot down."