SURPRISE LANDING

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 30, 5 February 1941, Page 7

SURPRISE LANDING

JAPANESE TROOPS

CUTTING STRATEGIC ROAD

(Received February 5, 8 a.m.) TOKIO, February 4. The Canton correspondent of the Tokio "Nichi Nichi Shimbun" reports that Japanese troops, under the protection of warships, effected a surprise landing at dawn south-east of Waichow in order to cut off the Hong KongShaokpang Road, on which Chungking depends heavily for supplies.

According to a message from Chungking, the Chinese High Command states that the Japanese offensive in South Honan which, since January 23, has resulted in the capture of all towns on the Pinghan railway south of Yencheng and in which columns have been sent east and west, has now been halted. Counter-attacks resulted in 20,000 Japanese casualties and routed the spearheads of the offensive which had intentionally been permitted to penetrate deeply.

According to a Shanghai message Chinese reports claim that over 9000 Japanese troops have been killed in very severe fighting in South Honan in the past five days. The .Chinese successfully repulsed attacks on all

fronts

A "mystery lifeline" by which China was foiling Japan and obtaining war supplies was described in a recent dispatch from Hong Kong to the Sydney r 'Sun" by S. C. P. Turnhull. It was described as "even mor* important than the Burma Road or the route from Russia" and as running from a point on the China coast, unknown to the world at large to Chungking, heart and capital of Free China. The road was declared to have been one of the main reasons why the Chinese have been able to continue their resistance to Japan's armies and to defeat the Japanese attempt at a blockade. The Japanese, it was said, knew of the existence of the road, but not all they would like to know about it. The route was reported to begin in China, to take a circuitous course, and to provide for the carriage of goods on the backs of Chinese, in junks, by trucks over roads, and by rail. Huge quantities of stores were said to have gone up this winding way and exports from China — tungsten, wolframite, hog bristles, tung-oil, and other goods—to have come down it. The products destined for Free China were declared to be sold to merchants in non-Chinese territory and to be sent over the secret route, which was over 1000 miles long, in about a month.