FIGHTING AT ICHANG

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 13 October 1941, Page 5

FIGHTING AT ICHANG

JAPANESE USE GAS BOMBS 2000 CHINESE KILLED London, Oct. 11. The Central China news agency m C hungking has withdrawn a claim which it made yesterday that the Yangtze River treaty port of Ichung was completely occupied, and it now admits that 1000 Japanese arc still fighting inside Die city, and the Japanese have been heavily bombing the Chinese troops from the air. The military spokesman in Chungking said that Japanese planes dropped 300 gas bombs on the Chinese troops in Ichang, killing nearly 2000 of them. This is tlie first large-scale gas bombing of tlie war. The Japanese military spokesman in Shanghai admitted that the Japanese had made a withdrawal from their first lines of defence outside Ichang. but claimed that the city itself was under full Japanese control. Yesterday the Central China news agency said that the Japanese rear lines east of Ichang had been cut, trapping tlie 13th Japanese division. Chinese leaders had described the Ichang victory as China’s greatest since the battle of Taierchwang in 1938. The news of the victory caused wild celebrations in Chungking yesterday. which was the thirtieth anniversary of the Chinese Republic. The Japanese, it was stated, were back in the positions they held before their offensive was launched in the middle of last month. The importance of Ichang is emphasised in London. In order to make any attack which might threaten Chungking the Japanese would have to advance through mountain gorges of which Ichang is the defence fortress. Marshal Chiang Kai-shek declared in a message to China yesterday that the nation’s resistance during the past four years had laid the foundations for victory.—U.P.A.