“MUST HAVE AID”

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22512, 16 December 1947, Page 7

“MUST HAVE AID”

CHINESE_FORCES TO END CIVIL WAR REDS USE JAP. EQUIPMENT (10 am.) NANKING, Dec. 15. “Unless the Nationalist forces obtain , immediate aid the civil war will con- ' tinue indefinitely,” said General Wang ■ Yaowu, Governor and military commander of Shantung Province. General Wang added that the American aid required was light and mobile arms and ammunition and technical ?i “ training of supply columns. It would obe sufficient for the Nationalists to smash the rebels. Thirty Chinese divisions had already been trained in the use of American , equipment. Other commanders were bewildered that assistance was being withheld. '-, General Wang said that when the Japanese surrendered to the Russians in Manchuria 1,500,000 rifles, 150,000 machine-guns and 20,000 field pieces ■' were handed over. He believed that these arms had been placed at the disu*;posal of the Chinese Communists. A i; good deal of Japanese equipment had been captured from the Communists ■ r recently. The capture of Chefoo early in Octo- . ber—the only Nationalist success in the past six months —was not the overwhelming victory the Government at first claimed. The campaign was a strategical victory, but a tactical failure, • said General Wang. The recapture of Chefoo severed the Communists’ most important supply line, but the rebels were not annihilated. They were only driven into the mountain districts around Weihaiwei and the peninsula.. However, General Wang maintained that the Nationalists still control more than two-thirds of Shantung Province.