"Terrible Fight"

Although Japan has consistently tried to minimize recent Japanese-Russian clashes on the border of Siberia, an engagement, amounting to full-dress warfare occurred last week at disputed Changkufeng Hill close to the point where the Soviet-Man-chukuo border reaches the Sea of Japan. Terse Moscow communiques said the Japanese had been "defeated," that the Soviet Charge d'Affaires in Tokyo had been ordered "to lodge with the Japanese Government an energetic protest and to draw its attention to the gravest possible consequences of the actions of Japanese militarists. ..." A detailed Japanese official communique described a "terrible fight" in which Japanese forces worsted Soviet troops who "used mechanized units, including tanks and heavy artillery." Concluded the Japanese communique: "Soviet big guns are now bombarding Kucheng, which is a nearby point."

To keep on calling such operations "frontier clashes" was fantastic. But neither Russia nor Japan wants open war. Both prefer to fight a little at a time as convenient. Chinese, whose air force today consists largely of Soviet-built planes, credited Russia with creating a diversion which last week led the worried Japanese to cease bombing Canton, gave that gory, undefended metropolis four days of respite.

This week, just as Soviet citizens were busy celebrating "AntiWar Day" (Stalin's name for the anniversary of the declaration of war by Imperial Germany in 1914 upon Imperial Russia), they were quietly informed by the Soviet official news agency Tass that the defeated Japanese forces had nevertheless "occupied Soviet territory to a depth of six miles." Next, Japanese official press wires reported that 50 Soviet bombing planes had appeared over Korea this week, bombed several villages and railways. Five planes were shot down before they could get back to Russia.

Japanese cities in the west, which would be the first victims of a Soviet bombing raid from Vladivostok against the Island Empire, enforced full air-raid precautions. Cables from Tokyo said the Home Fleet was being deployed, was "ready for any eventuality."

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