JAPAN PREPARING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 20825, 2 July 1942, Page 3

JAPAN PREPARING

BLOW AT RUSSIA. MANCHUKUO FORCES ENEMY'S AIM IN CHINA (By Teleßraph—Preaa Asan.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) (10.80 a.m.) RUGBY, July 1. After a period of comparative inactivity in the Far East, the present situation is seen in London as follows: There is definite knowledge in wellinformed quarters that a general drift of the Japanese land and air forces is taking place towards the northern frontier of Manchuria. There can be little doubt the Japanese are making every preparation to fall upon Russia without warning at their own chosen moment. • This does not necessarily mean that preparations have yet been completed or that an attack is imminent. In China no major operations appear to be going on. The 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 frontier, practically nothing is happening. The Chindwin Valley, which was the last area reported to be 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. In Madagascar no operations have been going on. The Chinese High Command admitted that the Japanese forces 'had made some advances in the region 80 miles southward of Nanchang. The fort-night-old bitter battle on the HonanShansi border is still raging. Both sides have suffered considerable losses, The Chinese Army spokesman admitted that the Japanese since the recapture of Kweiki, had narrowed the gap held by the Chinese on the Chekiang-Kiangsi railway to 25 miles. He denied the Japanese claim that the entire railway had been captured. The Tokio official radio announced that the Domei News Agency states that the Japanese effected the complete ocupation of the ChekiangKiangsi railway to-day as vanguard units, driving from east and west, met in the town of Hengfeng. A Japanese column, striking eastward from Iyang, smashed Chinese entrenchments on a height west of the town. Simutaneously, a column moving west from Shangpao, reached the outskirts of Hengfeng, thus ending a month of the most bitter fighting in the Chinese campaign since the fall of Hankow and Canton in 1938.