CHINESE TAKE TSINGKONG

Southland Times, Issue 25690, 5 June 1945, Page 5

CHINESE TAKE TSINGKONG

JAPANESE RETREAT TO LEIUCHOW (Rec. 8 p.m.) CHUNGKING, June 3. The Chinese have captured the important highway junction of Tsingkong. The correspondent of the United Press reports that the town was taken after a three days’ siege. The Japanese are now retreating towards Leiuchow, where they burned the former American air base and installations, also part of the city. The Chinese High Command announces that the Chinese have entered the outskirts of Szelo, 22 miles from the Indo-China border, thereby broadening to almost 150 miles the breach in the Japanese life line to south-east Asia. The new offensive _ against Paoching has carried the Chinese to within seven miles of the city, despite a Japanese effort to turn the Chinese left flank. ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE The Japanese survivors of the battle of the Kama beach-head, west of the Rangoon-Mandalay railway, on the east bank of the Irrawaddy, are trying to escape south-east into the malarial Pegu Hills. If they get across the mountains and rainswept jungles more Allied troops are waiting to intercept them in the foothills further to the The scale of the Japanese defeat in Burma is shown by the figures of their casualties between January and May 27. In this period the British 14th Army killed 31,364 Japanese and took 683 prisoners. British and Indian troops captured 450 guns of all calibres, 51 medium and light tanks and much other equipment. SOVIET CRITICISM OF CHINESE LEADERS Positions Abandoned To Japanese LONDON, June 3. Alleging that the Chinese Army under favourable conditions last year abandoned important positions to the enemy without a battle, using their troops to blocade the Sth and 4th Communist Armies, a commentator of the Moscow newspaper, Izvestia, states that some Chinese military leaders were more concerned with “the liquidation of the Partisan movement and the blockading of special frontier districts than with combating Japan.” Tire commentator said that Chinese soldiers knew how to fight. His criticism was directed against their leaders and the Chinese Government. He asserted that the latter in Congress reports sought to excuse the lack of military success by alleging insufficient Allied aid. The commentator declared that efforts by democratic circles were met with the bayonets of Chinese reactionaries every time any real “democratization” of the country was attempted. CHINESE COMMUNISTS EXECUTED (Rec. 9 p.m.) CHUNGKING, June 3. The newspaper Yulinjihapo reports that the Kwangsi authorities have executed four leaders of the Chinese Communist guerrilla forces, including General Changyen, former commander of the 19th Army on charges of rebellion. A document found by the central Government forces allegedly outlined plans for enlarging the Communist guerrilla’s area of operations and urged propaganda to shake the people’s confidence in the military and administrative leaders. 1