MAJOR JAPANESE SUCCESS

Southland Times, Issue 23599, 29 August 1938, Page 7

MAJOR JAPANESE SUCCESS

TOWN CAPTURED ON WAY TO HANKOW CHINA ALLEGES USE OF GAS BY ATTACKERS (United Press Assn.—Telegraph Copyright) (Received August 27, 6.30 p.m.) HANKOW, August 26. The first major success of the Japanese drive on Hankow is the capture of Juichang. It is now admitted by the Chinese that Yuchingshan Hill, the guardian of Poyang Lake, was also captured. Altogether 717 Chinese were killed.

The Japanese are advancing slowly in the face of the fiercest resistance.

General Chu Teh, commander of the (Chinese Communist Eighth Route Army, says his men this year have fought 600 engagements and inflicted 34,000 casualties, and 2000 prisoners have been taken. He is quite confident that the Chinese will push back the Japanese to the sea. In Japan a drive for scrap iron from households for munitions has begun. The Chinese Embassy in London alleges a further Japanese gas attack at Juichang on August 23. . A spokesman of the Japanese War Office denies the use of poison gas, “though a smoke screen of a harmless nature was possibly employed.” The Chinese Ambassador to London communicated to the Foreign Secretary (Viscount Halifax) China’s allegation that the Japanese in North Kiangsi are using poison gas. Reports from Geneva state that this Chinese allegation, at the request of China, has been communicated to all members of the League of Nations and to the Advisory Committee on the Far East.

STRICT CENSORSHIP AT SHANGHAI BRITISH PROTEST FAILS (Received August 27, 6.30 p.m.) SHANGHAI, August 26. The Japanese authorities have issued a statement saying that they are determined to impose the strictest censorship, including business messages, in spite of a British protest. Sir Archibald Kerr protested to the Japanese Ambassador about the censor’s suppression of British messages dealing with the attack on the SinoAmerican air liner and challenged Japan’s right to interfere with incoming and outgoing despatches. Three bodies have been recovered from the submerged aeroplane. AMERICAN PROTEST ABOUT AEROPLANE WASHINGTON, August 26. The Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hull) has emphatically protested' to Japan over the destruction of the Chinese commercial air liner piloted by an American. He stated that the attack had aroused public feeling in the United States, which objected to jeopardizing the lives of Americans and other non-combatants in aeroplanes flying regularly over a scheduled route.