Upriver

On the Yangtze River battle front last week the Japanese marked up another victory. Held back for a fortnight by Chinese booms across the river at Matang and Matowchen, Japanese warships ploughed upriver, finally blasted Chinese defenders from Hukow. Capture of Hukow, lying at the top of China's second largest lake, Lake Poyang, gives the Japanese a jumping-off place for two drives on Hankow. One route leads down the navigable lake to Nanchang, main Chinese air base which was severely bombed last week, then across country to the vital Canton-Hankow rail-line. A more direct route lies straight up the Yangtze, although this means fighting along a stream well blocked with booms and flanked by mountains pitted with Chinese gun emplacements. An indication that the Japanese will use this route came last week as they requested all foreign vessels, including U. S. and British gunboats at Kiukiang, to evacuate the area.

Capture of populous, prosperous Hankow will not mean the end of the war for China. Already unimportant Government bureaus have been moved upriver to Chungking and at Hankow the Foreign, Finance and Industry Ministries are poised to precede Chiang Kai-shek's military headquarters to the interior city of Kweiyang, slated as the next Chinese de facto capital.

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