SAFER AIR ROUTE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 May 1944, Page 4

SAFER AIR ROUTE

PROM INDIA TO CHINA BEING OPENED BY ALLIED OPERATIONS. POSITION IN KOHIMA AREA. (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 11.10 a.m.) CHUNGKING, May 23. “Chinese forces striking for the Burma border from the Salween River, have cut the old Burma Road at Chefang. 28 miles from the Burma frontier,” says a Chinese communique. This success has isolated the main Japanese base of Lungling, by cutting its supply route from Mandalay. The Japanese garrison at Chefang was wiped out. The seizure of Myitykina Aerodrome and the Allied crossing of the ..Irrawaddy are likely to yield increasing aid to China, because they open up the less dangerous southern air route from Assam to Kunming, permitting the flyng of cargoes over terrain where the hump slopes away from the Himalayan heights, says the Associated Press Kandy correspondent, according to a London message. “Formerly it was necessary to fly at 21,000 feet to avoid weatherbound peaks, whereas instrument flying.at 14,000 feet is possible over the new route.” Reuter’s Ceylon correspondent, in a review of recent fighting, states that operations around Kohima have confirmed the removal of any threat against Allied communications in the Brahmaputra Valley. The Japanese have been cleared from the ridges overlooking Kohima from the south and south-west and from the Treasury Ridge in the north. The Japanese are on the defensive and seemingly intend determinedly to resist any offensive from Kohima southwards.