One of the greatest military races in the history of the Pacific War was being run in Southern China and the wilds of the China-Burma frontier. On one side are the Japanese armies in the HengyangKweilin-Canton area. They are trying to consolidate the gains in their drive on Kweilin in time to beat off allied counter attacks. On the other side are American engineers and Chinese and American soldiers trying to push through the last links connecting the Ledo and Burma roads and rush supplies by land to the interior of China. Already the Chinese have occupied Tengchung and Lungling, the last remaining Japanese strong points on the route, but much work remains to be done before full-scale supply columns can pass between Myitkyina, in Bur.na, and Southeastern China.
The Japanese campaign has reached such proportions that American airbases centered on and supplied from Kweilin have been abandoned or destroyed. Presumably, after cutting China in two, the Japs hope to clean up Southeastern China to forestall allied landings on the coast. Kweilin, furthermore, would be just as valuable as an air base to them as to us. The Japanese first started to bisect China by pushing north from Canton and south from Changsha along the CantonHankow railroad. Later they commenced working west and southwest out of Hengyang towards Kweilin, northwest out of Canton and north from the peninsula just above Hainan island. There are reports that the Japanese are also gathering forces in French Indo-China. They may plan a drive northward to cut the Burma road at Kunming, a strategic transportation key for the supplying of China. Such a drive would strike behind the Burma border area where Chinese troops have been inching forward for months in order to meet General Stilwell’s army which has been pushing from India through Northern Burma, building the Ledo road as it goes.
There are trails on which the two allied forces have already made contact. If the Chinese team succeeds in time, it may be able to save the vital air bases which Japan is now trying to capture. An indication of Tokyo’s concern is found in a recent Japanese statement that 290 0 U.S. planes in China last spring had been increased to 3.600 in September. These planes have raided Nippon’s factories and convoys.
They are too close and too many. For Tokyo it is now or never.
In other war news: Finland’s first major offensive against Germany’s Lapland army, at present raging 30 miles to the north in the Gulf of Bothnia port of Oulu, emphasizes the exact intention of the Mannerheim government to carry out faithfully every requirement of Russia’s armistice terms. Three columns of seasoned forest troops are now driving wedges towards Col. Gen. Lothar Rendulic’s Austro-German 20th Army in an attempt to fulfill Soviet demands that it be captured and disarmed on Finnish soil. Retreating northwards, the Germans are reported to be blowing up bridges, mining roads and destroying villages. Their defiance of the Finnish ultimatum to get out of the country before Sept. 15 has now reached the point where it is obvious that both the Finns driving northwards, and the Russians squeezing westward from line roughly south of Petsamo, to Salla, are going to face very heavy fighting in the Arctic wastes and the vast green forest area. If the Finnish-Russian pincers can be made effective, the Germans’ only escape door will be North Norway.
And Calais was in Canadian hands Sunday after a six-day battle which ended in the ignominious collapse of the German garrison. The German fold-up was In marked contrast with the “to-the-death” stand of the British forces four years ago. But Calais suffered a heavy bombardment before the Germans were induced to quit, end ing the assault that began last Monday. In Saturday’s dusk, flames licked at the heart of the historic old city. Five huge columns of smoke rose above the skyline and sporadic firing continued as Canadian soldiers winkled out small resistance pockets. Along the roads to prison cages filed some 5,000 men – bulk of the garrison, who used the German, town’s civilians to gain time for themselves and then failed to fight when the civilians had gone. During the six-day attack, the Canadians broke through powerful perimeter fortifications and crossed flat, flooded fields. The outer defenses, built up during four years of occupation, combined with the enemy flooding operations, have made Calais impregnable, The final stage of the assault began at noon Saturday after a 24- hour truce arranged to permit come 20,000 civilians to leave the city.
And that’s just a portion of what happened this October 1, 1944 as reported by NBC’s World News Roundup.
