BIG OFFENSIVE

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIII, Issue 42, 19 February 1942, Page 7

BIG OFFENSIVE

JAPANESE PREPARING

NEW MOVE FROM

INDO-CHINA?

(By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.) " . LONDON, February 17. A military spokesman in Chungking today said that a large number of Chinese troops are being continuously moved to bolster up the defences in Burma. The Japanese High Command, he added, is apparently making extensive preparations for. a grand offensive against Burma. Thirty thousand Japanese troops were landed at the port of Haiphong in north Indo-China on February 5. Already two divisions of Japanese, are. in Burma, and more are now "available from irtalaya. «» The Rangoon correspondent of the "Daily. Express" says that the landing of the 'force at Haiphong constitutes a grave new threat to Burma. It can be assumed that the Japanese troops are by now in position to attack along the railway that runs from Haiphong for 220 miles to the Chinese border, and then another 160 miles to the city of Yunnan. The first major action by the Chinese in defence of the Burma Road seems to be imminent. Marshal Chiang Kaishek's forces are not unprepared, as the Chinese have been concentrating in . Yunnari Province ever since the Japanese seized Indo-China last July. While this army is pushing towards Yunnan another As likely to reinforce the Japanese on the Bilin River in Burma, the correspondent says. The Rangoon correspondent of "The Times" says that a military observer has revealed that European officers on several occasions were seen accompanying the Japanese in south-east Burma. .

The new. Japanese front lies on the Bilin River only in the south. It thence runs north-east to Dagwin, where the Salween River borders Thailand. The line, of course, is not a continuous onei, . .