INDO-CHINA STRUGGLE

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXV, Issue 259, 1 October 1945, Page 5

INDO-CHINA STRUGGLE

CLASHES NEAR HAIPHONG

(Rec, 10.10 a.m.) MANILA, Sept. 30. Annamites, Chinese pirates, French and Chinese are struggling for control of the Haiphong area of Tonking, French Indo-China, according to the commander of a United States destroyer, Commander R. Colbert. The Annamites, under a banner "The Free Itepublic of Hongay," seized Hongay 19 days after the Japanese surrender. They imprisoned 173 French, mostly civilians.

The Chinese, after a three-day battle, drove out the Annamites and liberated the French on September 16. . Commander Colbert added that pirates, mostly Chinese, are preying on ports in the Gulf of Tongking. A Krench patrol on September 3 boarded a junk armed with an ancient muzzleloading cannon and killed 62 pirates. General Peschkoff, French Ambassador to Chungking, reported that ho had been instructed to protest against the entrance of Chinese divisions into Laos, in Indo-China. A dispatch to a French news agency stated that a division had penerated as far as the capital of Laos, Luang Prabang. A comunique from the official "IndoChina Committee" meanwhile declared that the capture of Saigon by a handful of French troops on September 23 was in no way a French coup d'etat. It added that the French had acted in co-operation with their Allies. The local population was pleased to be rid of the disorderly elements that had been armed and incited by the Japanese. ■