FAR EAST WAR

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 July 1942, Page 5

FAR EAST WAR

JAPS. TO ATTACK RUSSIA.

RUGBY, July 1.

After a period of comparative inactivity in. the Far East the present situation, as seen in London is as follows: There is definite knowledge in well informed quarters that-a general drift of Japanese land and air forces is taking place towards the northern frontier of Manchuria. There can be little doubt that the Japanese are making every preparation to fall upon Russia without warning, at thenown chosen moment. This does not necessarily mean the preparations are yet completed, or that attack is imminent.

In China, no major operations appear to be going on. Japanese efforts seem to be directed to getting possession of the Chekiang area, from which air attacks might be made on Japan. It is thought that the moral effects of the American raid on Tokio were very great, and affected the whole Japanese strategy. On the Burmese front practically nothing is happening. Chindwin Valley, which is the last area reported as occupied by the Japanese, is perhaps the most malarious place in the world at this season, and the weather as a whole, is most unfavourable for operations. JAPS. CONTROL RAILWAY. (Recd. 10.45 p.m.) NEW YORK, July 1. The Tokio official radio announced that the Domei Agency states the Japanese effected a complete occupation of the Chekiang-Kiangsi railway, as vanguard units, driving from east and west, met in the town of Hengfeng. A Japanese column, striking eastward from lyang, smashed the Chinese entrenchments on the height west of the town. Simultaneously, a column moving west from Shangjao reached the outskirts of Hengfeng, thus ending a month of the most bitter fighting in the Chinese since the fall of Hankow and Canton in 1938. The Army spokesman admitted that the Japanese, since the recapture of Kweiki, have narrowed the gap on the Chekiang-Kiangsi railway to twenty-five miles. He denied the Japanese claim that the entire railway wafe captured.