Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

CHINESE LINES HOLD SOUTH OF KIUKIANG (8/2/38)
Microfiche-New York Times archives | 8/2/38 | No byline

Posted on 08/02/2008 6:18:24 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson

CHINESE LINES HOLD SOUTH OF KIUKIANG

Japanese Push Three Columns Westward in Fierce Battle on Both Sides of Yangtze

CAVALRY MOVE REPULSED

Spokesman Claims Defense of Hankow Is Weakened but Civilians Are Mobilized

Wireless to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
HANKOW, China, Tuesday, Aug. 2.-Japenese attacks are making little headway against Chinese positions southeast of Kiukiang and along the western shores of Poyang Lake, reports received here from the Yangtze front indicate.

The Japanese also have made little progress in clearing out Chinese troops from the Lushan and Kwanglu Mountains southeast of Kiukiang by attacks from the north and west. Kuling is reported still quiet. It is claimed that the Japanese have suffered heavy casualties in the recent Yangtze front operations.

The Japanese air force yesterday bombed Chinese fortifications along the Yangtze.

General Chang Chun, former Foreign Minister, was yesterday appointed director general of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek’s headquarters for Szechwan, Kweichow and Sikang and simultaneously relieved of the Governorship of Szechwan.

This position is very important as regards consolidation of the Central Government’s position in West China, and its responsibilities include supervision and direction of political affairs, maintenance of peace and order and construction of defense works.

Garrison headquarters here reports that 200,000 Wuhan civilians have been mobilized and assigned to auxiliary military duties in connection with the defense of the Hankow area. Headquarters issues this report as evidence of the concrete measures being taken to mobilize the Wuhan populace for a determined and united defense.

Big Battle Is Raging
SHANGHAI, Tuesday, Aug. 2 (AP).-One of the biggest battles of the Chinese-Japanese war in Central China appeared to be under way today on both sides of the Yangtze River in the vicinity of Kiukiang, 135 miles downriver from Hankow.

Despite large-scale fighting in which Japan’s combined land, naval and air forces hammered at the Chinese defenders, the Japanese admitted that a fierce conflict still was continuing south of Kiukiang, with the Chinese line unbroken.

The Japanese said that their forces were pounding forward north of the river in the Kiukiang area, but they admitted that gains were small. They said that the principal struggle in that sector was northwest of Taihu, near the western border of Anhwei Province.

Northeast of Kiukiang Japanese cavalry fought to within a mile of Susung, but was repulsed.

Latest dispatches from the front said that the Japanese immediately threw in two regiments of reinforcements and renewed the assault, while the Chinese attacked all along the line to Taienshan, thirty miles to the north.

A second Japanese column was advancing directly westward from Kiukiang and a third was attempting to break through Chinese lines at Shahochen, just south of Kiukiang.

Warships Aid Drive

The drive was aided by Japanese warships in Lake Poyang, which bombarded Chinese positions along the lake shore.

In Shansi and Honan Provinces and along the Peiping-Hankow and Tientsin-Pukow Railways widespread daily clashes continued.

Sporadic artillery duels and skirmishes also were daily occurrences across the Tsien Tang River from Hangchow, southwest of Shanghai in Chekiang Province.

The Fourth Route Army, cooperating with guerrillas, was increasingly active in the Lake Tai area, west of Shanghai, and along the Shanghai-Nanking and the Shanghai-Hangchow Railways.

Japanese military authorities carried out extensive raids in Pootung, industrial area across the Whangpoo river from Shanghai, arresting twenty men and women suspected as terrorists, and confiscating thirty guns and eight bombs.

Claim Defense Weakened
Special Cable to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
SHANGHAI, Tuesday, Aug. 2.-The Japanese capture of Kiukiang is already seriously affecting the Chinese plans for the defense of the Hankow-Wuchang region, a Japanese Army spokesman announced last night.

He declared that fresh troops from the Wuhan area are at present being thrown into the area west of Kiukiang, where Japanese troops are engaging a portion of the Fourth Army of the Chinese.

An important break in the main line of Chinese defenses in the Hankow area was claimed also when it was asserted that the Japanese advance had battered in the north gate of the walled town of Susung last night and captured the town.

Japanese aerial observers at dawn this morning reported that the Chinese forces in the surrounding area appeared in full retreat. Susung is an important strategic point.

Japanese also claim control of Hwangmei, north of Kiukiang, and from this point an excellent motor road leads to Hankow. Chinese sources, however, say that already many of its bridges have been dynamited and portions of the highway flooded in order to impede the Japanese advance.

Eighth Army Reported Caught
HSINKING, Manchukuo, Tuesday, Aug. 2 (AP).-Officials of the Kwantung Army [Japanese Army of occupation in Manchukuo] said that the Chinese Eighth Army (Communist) which invaded Western Jehol Province in Manchukuo by way of Hopeh and Chahar Provinces in North China was now bottled up and unable to reach outer Mongolia.

The Chinese forces were checked, it was claimed, only after months of depredations during which two Japanese planes were shot down.

Nanking Trains Propagandists
SHANGHAI, Aug 1 (AP).-The Japanese-dominated government at Nanking today organized a propaganda bureau which immediately assumed supervision and control over all newspapers published in Japanese-occupied areas of Central China. The bureau also established a training school in which sixty prospective propagandists were enrolled.


TOPICS: History
KEYWORDS: china; history; milhist; realtime
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-42 next last
If you would like to be added to or deleted from the Real Time +/- 70 Years ping list, send me a freepmail.
1 posted on 08/02/2008 6:18:24 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: fredhead; r9etb; PzLdr; dfwgator; Paisan; From many - one.; rockinqsranch; GRRRRR; 2banana; ...

Sino-Japanese war update.


2 posted on 08/02/2008 6:19:23 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson (For events that occurred in 1938, real time is 1938, not 2008.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Homer_J_Simpson
If you are at all interested in Chinese history in the period 1920-1975, then you must start [& end] with Chang & Halliday:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/0679422714/
It's just fascinating to read these China stories after being informed by C&H's investigations into what was really going on behind the scenes.

For instance, PJ O'Rourke's recent travelogue is just filled with regurgitations of Mao-ist propaganda & myth-making from that era, all of which makes complete sense once you understand what Mao was trying to accomplish [and in fact accomplishing] at the time:

The Cleveland of Asia: A Journey Through China’s Rust Belt
P. J. O'Rourke
Spring 2008
http://www.worldaffairsjournal.org/2008%20-%20Spring/abstract-china.html

3 posted on 08/02/2008 6:28:06 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee (const Tag &referenceToConstTag)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Homer_J_Simpson

CIA files released in the last year affirm that the CIA helped insure that Mao won.

Demonic Traitorous globalist pig manipulators.

God will deal with all such in His time.

The suffering between now and then is not fun to contemplate, however.


4 posted on 08/02/2008 6:29:25 AM PDT by Quix (key QUOTES POLS 1900 ON #76 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2031425/posts?page=77#77)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: KayEyeDoubleDee
...all of which makes complete sense once you understand what Mao was trying to accomplish [and in fact accomplishing] at the time:

Mao was a pure psychopath....along with Stalin and Hitler he was about the most prolific killer of the 20th Century.All he was trying to accomplish was the gaining of total power....and adoration.Nothing more.Despite what he...or anyone else....might claim.

5 posted on 08/02/2008 6:41:00 AM PDT by Gay State Conservative (Obama:"Ich bein ein beginner")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Quix
CIA files released in the last year affirm that the CIA helped insure that Mao won.

Yeah, C&H indicate that there were a number of Americans in the Mao effort, to include Edgar Snow, Anna Louise Strong, an un-named American bank [I really wish they'd named the bank], Gen Patrick Hurley, George Marshall, and probably the entire US State Department, among others.

6 posted on 08/02/2008 6:48:36 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee (const Tag &referenceToConstTag)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Homer_J_Simpson
Where are "today's" events?


7 posted on 08/02/2008 6:51:10 AM PDT by BroJoeK (A little historical perspective....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: KayEyeDoubleDee

I may be wrong.

But I have a very faint impression it was Bank of America.


8 posted on 08/02/2008 6:56:24 AM PDT by Quix (key QUOTES POLS 1900 ON #76 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2031425/posts?page=77#77)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: KayEyeDoubleDee

Thanks for the details.


9 posted on 08/02/2008 6:57:11 AM PDT by Quix (key QUOTES POLS 1900 ON #76 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2031425/posts?page=77#77)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: Gay State Conservative
All he was trying to accomplish was the gaining of total power....and adoration.

Right - Mao used the long march to eliminate his most powerful rivals within the Communist Party high command.

One of the things that's fascinating about PJ ORourke's piece is the story told to him by a survivor of the Long March, who was marching under the command of one of Mao's rivals, and whose comrades were systematically marched & starved to death by Mao so as to eliminate them as competitors to Mao [and his troops].

But sixty or seventy years later, when he spoke to PJ, this survivor still didn't realize that - that the Long March was so terrible for him & his comrades precisely because Mao was determined to [and succeeded in] killing them all off.

PS: Getting back to the story at hand, Mao used the entire "war" against Japan to attack Chiang in the countryside - Mao viewed the Japanese as his allies in weakening and deposing Chiang.

10 posted on 08/02/2008 6:57:17 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee (const Tag &referenceToConstTag)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK
Where are "today's" events?

...both sides of the Yangtze River in the vicinity of Kiukiang, 135 miles downriver from Hankow.

I see Hankow on the map. Kiukiang apparently doesn't rate a dot of its own.

11 posted on 08/02/2008 7:01:34 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson (For events that occurred in 1938, real time is 1938, not 2008.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Homer_J_Simpson

One of the stories mentions a cavalry attack, but it doesn’t say if it was tank cavalry or horse cavalry. I mention this because in 1939 both Belgium and Poland fielded horse cavalry.


12 posted on 08/02/2008 7:03:52 AM PDT by Lucius Cornelius Sulla (Obama "King of Kings and Lord of Lords")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Quix
Sino Japanese War

"From December 1937 events such as the Japanese attack on the USS Panay and the Nanking Massacre swung public opinion in the West sharply against Japan and increased their fear of Japanese expansion, which prompted the United States, the United Kingdom, and France to provide loan assistance for war supply contracts to Kuomintang.

"Furthermore, Australia prevented a Japanese Government-owned company from taking over an iron mine in Australia, and banned iron ore exports in 1938.[4]

"Japan retaliated by invading Vietnam in 1940, and successfully blockaded China and prevented the import of arms, fuel and 10,000 tons/month of materials supplied by the Western Powers through the Haiphong-Yunnan Fou railway line.

"By mid-1941, the United States organized the American Volunteer Group, or Flying Tigers. Led by Claire Chennault, their early combat success of 300 kills against a loss of 12 of their shark painted P-40 fighters earned them wide recognition at the time when Allies were suffering heavy losses."

So, the US provided Mao's communists with how many tons of supplies, and how many fighter planes?

13 posted on 08/02/2008 7:08:19 AM PDT by BroJoeK (A little historical perspective....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK

I don’t recall the details.

I think there’s a thread on FR.

I think it was more holding back certain things, facilitating certain things . . . aiding with materiel was a minor part of such manipulations, imho.

The puppet masters have been playing all sides against the middle for many, many decades.


14 posted on 08/02/2008 7:15:02 AM PDT by Quix (key QUOTES POLS 1900 ON #76 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2031425/posts?page=77#77)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK

PLEASE read post #76 at the FR thread link in my tag line.

After reading those quotes of leaders from 1900 on, THEN tell me whether you believe the CIA did no such thing, or not.


15 posted on 08/02/2008 7:16:07 AM PDT by Quix (key QUOTES POLS 1900 ON #76 http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2031425/posts?page=77#77)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Quix
"After reading those quotes of leaders from 1900 on, THEN tell me whether you believe the CIA did no such thing, or not."

Surely you do not intend to suggest that the CIA was helping Chi-Coms during the 1930s?? ;-)

During W.W.II, the US provided "Uncle Joe" Stalin with many $billions in military aid, and Chinese nationalists (even before Pearl Harbor) with many $millions in aid -- tens of thousands of tons, according to the source above.

I'd suggest that any aid provided directly to Chi-Coms was relatively miniscule.

16 posted on 08/02/2008 7:39:46 AM PDT by BroJoeK (A little historical perspective....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK

The CIA did not exist until after WWII.


17 posted on 08/02/2008 7:42:58 AM PDT by Humvee (Beliefs are more powerful than facts - Paulus Atreides)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK
So, the US provided Mao's communists with how many tons of supplies, and how many fighter planes?

Marshall et al WITHHELD supplies from Chiang, and repeatedly restrained him from going after Mao and finishing off Mao once and for all [while Chiang still had the upper hand] at the same time that Stalin was arming Mao to the teeth.

BTW, after Chiang was vanquished to Formosa/Taiwan, most of China was effectively a Soviet satellite [literally - it was almost another province of the Soviet Union] until Stalin's death - that's something else which Chang & Halliday make clear.

18 posted on 08/02/2008 7:50:13 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee (const Tag &referenceToConstTag)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: Humvee
"The CIA did not exist until after WWII."

Yes, of course, which is why any suggestion that the "CIA" was helping Chi-Coms during the 1930s is so utterly ridiculous it's beyond response.

But I was trying to be a nice guy, and not insult the IQ of our worthy poster, Quix...

19 posted on 08/02/2008 8:02:08 AM PDT by BroJoeK (A little historical perspective....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies]

To: BroJoeK
Yes, of course, which is why any suggestion that the "CIA" was helping Chi-Coms during the 1930s is so utterly ridiculous it's beyond response.

Factually the assertion about the "CIA" might not be correct, but the sentiment itself is most definitely correct - the very same Communists who riddled the FDR & Truman administrations, and who helped Mao rise to power, are indistinguishable from the Valerie Plame / Joe Wilson / Foggy Bottom types who are working so diligently to bring down the Bush administration and to promote the causes of nihilism, statism, and Islam.

The names may have changed over the course of the last century, but the methods & the ends are the same.

20 posted on 08/02/2008 8:10:25 AM PDT by KayEyeDoubleDee (const Tag &referenceToConstTag)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first 1-2021-4041-42 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson