DRIVE ON SOOCHOW

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23351, 17 November 1937, Page 11

DRIVE ON SOOCHOW

THE JAPANESE ADVANCE TWO COLUMNS CONVERGING CHINESE DEMORALISED BIG BATCHES OF PRISONERS (United Press Association), (By Electric Telegraph--Copyright) TOKIO, Nov. 15. Latest advices reaching the War Office show that two columns of Japanese from the Yangtse River are rapidly converging on Soochow, with prospects of trapping masses of Chinese troops trying to escape to Nanking from the lake region behind Shanghai, thus facilitating the capture of Nanking. The indications are that the Chinese are now becoming demoralised. The Japanese are beginning to take large batches of prisoners. PROSPECT OF ARMISTICE EARLY MOVE EXPECTED LONDON, Nov. 15. The Tokio correspondent of The Times says: The Foreign Office Spokesman announces that the Shanghai military situation is changing so rapidly that offers of good offices to arrange an armistice can shortly be expected, but he adds that the foreign Pov/ers desiring the restoration of peace should advise China to negotiate with Japan. Everything would depend on the actual character of the proposals. Mr Matsui would not be likely to mention armistice terms to Admiral Little without consulting Tokio, reports to which indicate the rapid crumbling of the Chinese resistance, the Japanese having traversed with unexpected rapidity the lakes and canals of the great plain west of Shanghai. The Japanese employed motorised sampans brought from Japan, complete with civilian boatmen, and they augmented these with abandoned Chinese junks.

Part of the Japanese landing force from Hankow Bay made surprising aquatic progress from Sunking, 35 miles west of Pingwang, where they cut the vital Soochow-Kashing railway.

Hundreds of Chinese boatmen, waving home-made Japanese flags, approached the advancing Japanese, offering to sell or hire their craft to the invaders.

With the Japanese from the Yangtse-kiang attacking Changshu on the north, those from Hangchow Bay astride the railway at Pingwang in the south, and the main body pressing the Chinese against the lakes, the only escape is via a bottleneck connecting Kunshan and Soochow, where, despite fortifications, experts believe that the greater part of the Chinese in the Shanghai hinterland will be trapped and annihilated. Already large bodies have been completely disorganised. A large Chinese counter offensive In southern Hopei was defeated. General Sung Che-yuan, having received 500,000 dollars from Nanking, reorganised the 29th Army, and advanced on Shunteh with Taming as a base, occupying Jenhsian and Manho, but the Japanese drove him out, capturing Taming and Kwangping, with 200 machine guns and 55 prisoners, and driving the defeated troops into the marshes north of the Chang River, where they are expected to be trapped. Japanese planes are bombing Chinese troops in Weihsien, an isolated town 40 miles east of Shupeh, indicating that the Japanese movement of troops from North China to Shanghai enabled the Chinese temporarily to recover some lost ground Naval planes continue the bombardment of the Chinese near the Yellow River, and troops captured the walled town of Kaotang. A Shanghai message states that though the Japanese troops have not actually reached Soochow it was the target for a terriffic air raid, involving the discharge of 700 bombs in 30 hours.

BOMBING OF SOOCHOW DAMAGE ENORMOUS NANKING, Nov. 15. Reports from foreign observers at Soochow state that the damage from Japanese bombing was enormous. The Red Cross dressing station was struck by a half-ton bomb, and completely disappeared. All the wounded are being removed from Nanking to-day into the interior. PRESS REPRESENTATIVE LONDON, Nov. 15. The Australian journalist. Mr Ronald Monson, has gone to Shanghai by aeroplane to succeed Mr Pembroke Stephens as the Daily Telegraph's representative. Mr Monson was with the Basaue forces in Spain until the fall of Bilboa.