YUGOSLAVIAN

Korero (AEWS), Volume 2, Issue 1, 17 January 1944, Page 29

YUGOSLAVIAN

Kong, the French leased territory of Kwangchowwan, and Hainan Island. Apart from occasional small-scale Japanese activity a few dozen miles outside Canton, this front has recently been very quiet, since its garrison is barely sufficient for defence. The south-western front, finally, consisting of two small, disconnected sectors in Yunnan Province, has at present perhaps two or two and a half Japanese divisions, probably not of full strength, on the Salween River sector along the Burma-Yunnan Highway, up to a point some 400 miles distant from its terminus,

Kunming, the small numbers of the enemy are powerfully compensated by an exceptional plentitude of modern equipment. On the southern sector the few Japanese troops are having the dubious support of several Thai or Siamese divisions. But both sectors can at any time be reinforced with relative ease from parts of the ten —or by now probably eleven —Japanese divisions in the adjoining Burma - Malaya - Thailand - French Indo - China theatre. On this front more than on any other, however, topographical and climatic conditions are definitelv in favour of the defenders.