Puppets Still Divided

Puppets Still Divided

Japanese soldiers advanced only by yards last week on the 30-mile zigzag front along the Grand Canal north of Suchow, key point in the defense of the crucially important Lunghai Railway in north central China. While General Li Tsung-jen, commander-in-chief of the Chinese Central Army, poured thousands of fresh troops into the heavy fortifications along the Yi River, the Japanese, far removed from their bases, showed signs of weariness. The Chinese "Hindenburg Line" guarding the railway still held fast.

Striking quickly from the eastern side of the Lunghai Corridor, the mobile Chinese captured for a night the walled town of Tancheng, almost 15 miles back of the farthest advanced Japanese line. With their forces at Nanlakow thus threatened, reinforced Japanese troops retook the town, but realized that the wily Chinese by this stroke had succeeded in lengthening what was already for them a too extended southern Shantung battlefront.

The Japanese aim is to clear the Tient-sin-Pukow Railway so the Japanese puppets of Peiping can be united with the equally submissive Nanking puppets. At one point north of Suchow the Japanese advance guard was stalled 15 miles from the Lunghai Railway. At another point south of Suchow a Japanese column was reported within 20 miles of the line. The southern force was small, however. Between it and the main southern army were scores of miles of hostile territory. A gap of at least a hundred miles had to be filled before the two puppet governments could meet.

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