ENCIRCLED PEKING PREPARES FOR SIEGE: PENGPU ISOLATED

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22824, 20 December 1948, Page 5

ENCIRCLED PEKING PREPARES FOR SIEGE: PENGPU ISOLATED

(N.Z.P. A.—Reuter—Copyright.) (11.30 a.m.) NANKING, Dec. 19. Government reports yesterday admitted the loss of Haiticn, Peking's western suburb, where the major airport is located, and Fengtai, a strategic railway station just outside the Peking eitv wall, lias been evacuated by Government forces, says Reuters correspondent.

Inside Peking the city is preparing for street fighting and the construction of another airport between the inner and outer walls. Five columns of Communists, totalling 150.000 men, are now on the outskirts of Peking. Four columns an? closing on Tientsen which is now almost as completely isolated as Peking The Nationalists claim they still hold Pcitang, eight miles north of Tangku. A military conference, under General Chiang Kai-shek, yesterday decided to send a “strong naval force” to reinforce the precarious Nationalist hold on Tangku and also to build up the air strength at Tsingtao. Hwai River Line Pierced An Associated Press dispatch from Pengpu said that the Nationalist armies are in full retreat southwards today from the pierced Hwai River line, 100 miles north of NankingCommunist columns are reported t<? have crossed the Hwai River in strength west of this pivotal point, 108 miles north-west of Nanking. They already had crossed in some force east of Pengpu earlier this week. Thus outflanked’ Pengpu is being abandoned. Government headquarters have already been moved to Chusiem only 30 miles north-west of Nanking. The Communist radio asserted that in Central China 120,000 Nationalist troops were killed, wounded or captured when General Huang Wei’s army group was annihilated.

The New York Herald Tribune's correspondent in Peking says it is recognised in Peking that unless the Nationalist Government comes to terms with the Communists the military collapse of General Fu Tso-Yi's remaining few strongholds in North China is only a matter of time. His armies are irretrievably partitioned and isolated. The only question agitating the public mind in encircled Peking is whether the ordeal is to be short or prolonged.