Shanghai Watches Battle Across River: Air Onslaught On Reds

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22954, 24 May 1949, Page 5

Shanghai Watches Battle Across River: Air Onslaught On Reds

(N.Z.P. A.—Reuter—Copyright.) (11.15 a.m.) SHANGHAI, May 23. Rifle and machine-gun fire rocked the down-town area of Shanghai tonight as everything suggested the Communists had closed in on Pootung, opposite the Bund. Fires are at present blazing almost on the rim of the eastern bank of the Whangpoo River.

Eight large fires burned fiercely barely half a mile from the river, and the sky .over the Bund is just one patch of crimson. Decisive Stage According to the official Central News Agency, the battle on the peninsula has reached a decisive phase. Along the down-town district of Shanghai, thousands massed on every available rooftop to watch the grim battle as dense clouds of black smoke billowed skywards. Fighter planes and bombers of the Nationalist Air Force threw their full weight into the battle of Pootung tonight, streaking from western airfields in low-level attacks on the advancing Reds.

Thousands saw the planes skimming Bund skyscrapers in savage assaults,! but the Communists methodically maintained the pressure. Late reports said that heavy fighting for Woosung had also been resumed. Military observers believe that the Communist strategy for seizing Shanghai is still to gain of Woosung to close the last Nationalist escape route and over-run the whole of Pootung for the subsequent invasion of Shanghai proper through a series of simultaneous crossings. Dockyards Blown Up The Nationalist forces have blown up the city’s- Kiangnan dockyards on the eastern bank of the Whangpoo River opposite the French Bund, according to evacuees who arrived in Hong Kong today from Shanghai. In addition to destroying the docks and valuable workshop equipment, the Nationalists blew up all unwanted river craft on the Pootung side of the river to deny them to the Communists.

The evacuees said they knew nothing of the Nationalist claimed victory in northern Pootung, but they said that popular opinion among the Shanghai residents now was that the city might be held by the Nationalists for some time. The British and United States commanders 'of the naval forces anchored in the Yangtse River off the Commun-ist-encircled Shanghai area have arrived at Hong Kong and are expected to confer within the next 24 hours.

The Communist Peking rgdio announced tonight that Nancnang, capital of the Kiangsi Province, has been captured by the Communists. Nanchang, the fourth provincial capital occupied by the Communists south of the Yangtse, is populated by 300,000 and is the main communication centre of Kiangsi.

Chinese Claim Success Nationalist forces, reinforced by fresh units, recaptured several important strong-points in northern Pootung today in a major counter-offensive and reopened the lower reaches of the Whangpoo River to navigation. The official Central news agency described the Nationalist counter-attack as the “most sensational development” since the start of the Shanghai battle.

It added that the Kaochiao Beach area, five miles south-east of Woosung, one of the points retaken, was converted into a “mass graveyard” for the Communists in Pootung. A garrison communique claimed that the bulk of the Communist 13th Army was almost totally wiped out after 48 hours’ fighting and revealed that the Nationalist counter-attack is still in progress.

A Chinese Navy communique reported that the Chinese First Fleet carried out operations from Woosung to Kaochiao in the past 24 hours. Kaochiao Beach was retaken. With the reopening of the seven-mile lower stretch of the Whangpoo, three vessels carrying 19,000 tons of badly needed rice arc due to enter the port this evening. Foochow Now Quieter

The Central news agency said that the situation had quietened down considerably in Foochow, capital of Fukien Province, following the arrival of strong reinforcements to man the new defence line.

A United Press dispatch from Shanghai says the Nationalists today reopened the air link with the outside world and appear to have stopped the drive by 200,000 Reds to seize the east bank of ■the Whangpoo. Commercial planes now are using Lunghvva airport, three miles southwest of Shanghai city limits, which had been closed by Communist shelling for the last two days.

Shanghai garrison headquarters refuse to disclose information about the battle across the river from Shanghai, but smoke smudges and gunfire today indicate that the front is a little closer to the river than it has been for the last few days.