JAPAN’S ARMIES IN PERIL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 251, 22 October 1937, Page 7

JAPAN’S ARMIES IN PERIL

MENACE OF “RED NAPOLEON” COMMUNIST FORCES STRIKE SEVERAL BLOW? SUCCESSFUL RAID ON AERODROME (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) Received Oct. 2J, 9.40 pan. LONDON, Oct. 21. The British Lnited Press correspondent at Shanghai says that Japan’s three main armies in North China, one threatening Shansi, ami the others marching southward from Tientsin and Peking, are in peril as the result of blows struck by General Chutes, the “Red Napoleon,” commanding the Communist Army. While regulars, provincial levies and guerillas have mercilessly harassed the Japanese flanks, the “Red Army” ■swooped from the west into the Japanese rear and captured Pingslian, which is 130 miles behind the Japanese most advanced troops on the Peking-Hankow railway. “Red” detachments also captured Wantu and Youyang, both far behind the lines, and cut off many Japanese units. This threat to the far rear is relieving the Japanese pressure against Shansi, where Chinese Mohammedans claim advances. A Tokio message says that Japan is concerned with the increasing aerial and military activity on the Manchukuo and Korean frontiers, and large-scale manoeuvres centred on Vladivostok. All newspaper dispatches from Shanghai state that Stalin has agreed to Outer Mongolia resuming allegiance to Nanking. So Russian-trained Mongols may be released against Japan without involving Russia. The British United Press correspondent at Shanghai states further that a regiment of the Red Army made a desperate raid on a Japanese aerodrome at Yangpingpao, in the Shansi Province. Troops rushed the hangars and the landing field and demolished 24 aeroplanes with hand grenades. One hundred Chinese were killed. Another detachment of Reds surrounded and wiped out the Japanese force at Hsinkow, Shansi, capturing 160 tanks and 300 armoured ears. .