ADVANCE ON NANKING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 303, 22 November 1937, Page 10

ADVANCE ON NANKING

3.15 P.M. EDITION.

PREPARATIONS PROGRESSING. THE CRUCIAL TEST. (United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) Received November 22, 1.50 p.m. TOKIO, Nov. 21. The Japanese forces to the westward and north-westward are completing their preparations for an advance on Nanking, which the Chinese—though not unanimously—declare they will defend to the last man. The Japanese naval and military force, which landed at Fushan, on the eastern bank of the Yangtse-Iviang, established communications behind the lines linking up Fuslian, Cliangsliu and Soochow on the Shangliai-Nanking canal and railway. They then advanced upon Wusih, thereby threatening tho flank of the Chinese secondary defences, barring the road to Nanking 100 miles away. The Chinese are retreating in disorder for Soochow, where the Japanese assert they bayoneted 1000 and took 2000 other prisoners. The Chinese Air Force has ceased to exist ns a fighting unit and, therefore, there is nothing to prevent the Japanese ’planes continuously bombing and machine-gunning the fugitives. The victors are now advancing on the entire front. This is based on a rough semicircle connecting Huchow-fu, Soochow and Fushan. The intention is to crucially test the Chinese “Hindenburg Line” connecting AVusih and Iviangyin. Tho fate of Nanking hangs on this test.