Stars Mark the Spots

By treaty U. S. gunboats have the right to patrol the Yangtze River, an international waterway. The war between Japan and China has not legally affected these rights. The U. S. river gunboat Monocacy (pronounced mo-nock'-asy) has recently been on refugee work near Kuikiang, 450 miles upstream from Shanghai. Low on food and fuel, the coal-burning ship was scheduled to go to Shanghai for provisioning.

Before ordering this long trip through Japanese-controlled waters, U. S. Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, Comrnander-in-Chief of the U. S. Asiatic Fleet, asked Japanese sanction. Last week Vice Admiral Koshiro Oikawa, Commander-in-Chief of Japan's China Fleet, firmly refused. His reasons: 1) possible interference with Japanese naval strategy; 2) the Monocacy might strike a Chinese mine; 3) the gunboat might be mistakenly fired upon by Japanese shore batteries, producing another Panay type incident; 4) the Japanese consider the recently captured Matung boom below Kuikiang "a prize of war" which no U. S. ship has a right to pass. But despite Japanese officiousness, Admiral Yarnell knows his nation's rights. Early this week the gunboat Oahu was steaming up the Yangtze, presumably to relieve the cornered Monocacy.

More harrowing last week to Japanese strategy than any U. S. gunboat could possibly be was the crescendo of Chinese guerrilla activity behind Japanese lines. Tsinan, Shantung's capital, was attacked fiercely by Chinese partisans. Chuyung, 26 miles north of Nanking, was temporarily captured by raiding guerrillas. Most daring guerrilla raid of all was one staged in western Shanghai. Between Nanking and Shanghai were still operating last week no less than 43,000 Chinese regulars in detachments which changed their positions nightly.

The extent of guerrilla activities in occupied areas was indicated in a map published this week by the Intelligence Officers of the U. S. Fourth Marines stationed at Shanghai. It looked like the vision of a cartographer who had just been clubbed over the head. Big stars marking guerrilla-controlled areas, showed that actual Japanese control extends only a few miles each side of railroads, rivers, canals. Six stars dotted the map above Peking.

Hopeh Province twinkled with guerrillas. In Shantung Province, where about 160,000 guerrillas and remnants of the Chinese regulars operate, the map showed a whole constellation. Most harried Japanese-occupied province of all was Shansi, where 40 divisions of Chinese troops, mostly Communist, totaling 240,000 made life difficult for the Japanese soldier. No part of the occupied area was without its star clusters.

While the Japanese were stalled last week in their drive up the Yangtze to Hankow, at Shanghai the Japanese Army seized pro-Chinese books by U. S. Authors Carl Crow, Agnes Smedley, Edgar Snow, two issues of the New York Times, one issue of TIME. The U. S. Consulate protested. In a national radio broadcast Chinese Premier H. H. Kung, descendant of Confucius, described China's bountiful harvests this year, exulted: "God is helping China!"

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