Third Year

One day last week Emperor Hirohito and Empress Nagaka prayed at a shrine in their medieval Tokyo Palace. On the same day Premier Baron Kiichiro Hiranuma led his entire Cabinet to famed Yasukuni Shrine, in Tokyo, where they paid their respects to Japan's war dead. At noonday there was a moment of silence. There were no parades, no brass bands, no excitement. Correspondents described the atmosphere in the Japanese capital as one of quiet resignation, with stronger indications than ever before that the Japanese people, going into the third year of war, would welcome peace. It was the second anniversary of the start of the "China incident," and there was plainly nothing much to celebrate.

Across the China Sea and far into the interior of Asia, 2,200 miles away, at Chungking, China's temporary capital, the atmosphere seemed brighter, even though half the people had left the city in fear of air raids. There were several mass meetings and the damaged and scarred city blossomed out in a new coating of war cartoons and slogans pasted on the walls of half-ruined buildings. That night Japanese bombers came over again in the moonlight, killed 50 persons in the city and damaged the British gunboat Falcon lying at anchor in the Yangtze. But the raid did not discourage Chinese leaders from broadcasting some high-hearted optimism:

> In a message to the Chinese people Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek maintained that Japan was being steadily weakened, that China was daily growing in strength. He figured Japanese casualties in China at 1,000,000, some 940,000 more than is admitted officially by the Japanese. In another 15,000-word address the Generalissimo begged the Japanese people to "awake from a publicity-induced stupor under militaristic supervision and save themselves from mad aggression leading to certain ruin and destruction."

> In a radio hook-up with the U. S., the U. S.-educated Mme Chiang Kaishek, the Generalissimo's most trusted helper, claimed that Chinese resistance had virtually exhausted the Japanese, but asked that the Western nations declare "without delay" economic sanctions against Japan.

>Chinese civil leaders issued long, hopeful reports on numerous phases of Chinese national activity. Just concluded in Chungking was a conference of all military bigwigs. Despite the loss during the last year of almost every coastal port, the Chinese retreat from the middle Yangtze Valley and the near exhaustion of Chinese finances (last week the Chinese Government placed restrictions on imports to save its foreign exchange), the military men professed to believe that the Japanese war machine in China had bogged down. Cheeriest of all was dapper little General Chen Cheng, Political Minister of the National Military Council, one of the central figures in the Central Military Academy clique, right-hand man to the Generalissimo. Said he: "Before 1941 Japan will be begging for peace." The General's rosy picture was painted from numerous facts, figures, estimates, generalizations gathered and made by Chinese, in part substantiated by foreign observers. Background for Chinese military optimism:

Japanese troops in China now number 1,000,000, are divided into 33 divisions (of 30,000 each, and three cavalry brigades). In South China there are three divisions, in Central China 14, in North China 16. This imposing array of warriors and war machines, however, is locked tight to its present conquered territory, engaged solely in guarding its garrison posts and communication lines. Against them Chinese forces in the last six months have won back more towns and outposts than they have lost. Without sending more men to China, the Chinese argue, the Japanese cannot marshal at any one point the necessary strength for a successful offensive. Proof that the Japanese are stalled is in the fact that no recent offensive has been undertaken and that the Japanese have merely been lunging here, thrusting there, without coordination or important effect.

The little publicized spring campaign in North Hupeh--a campaign which the Japanese hoped would eventually land them in Chungking--resulted in the greatest Chinese success of the war since they defeated the Japanese at Taierchwang in the spring of 1938. Opposing the 100,000 Japanese was the crack Kwangsi Army of General Li Tsung-jen, hero of Taierchwang. General Li caught the Japanese spread out in the North Hupeh hills, threw them back with a loss of 27,000 men. Significantly, no farther than three or four miles back of the Japanese lines in this battle Chinese guerrillas were busy harassing Japanese communications.

> Foreigners report an improvement in Chinese fighting technique. Chinese trenches are no longer individual pit-holes, but are long, connected "Western style" ditches. Furthermore, Chinese troops are now transferred by night instead of day, as they used to be, and hence are not so severely bombed from the air. Machine-gunning by the new Japanese recruits is reported as bad, while the percentage of Japanese artillery duds on all fronts is rising.

> European-trained Communist General Chou Enlai, Vice Minister of the Political Training Board of the National Council, made an estimate of the Chinese guerrillas' effectiveness. His optimistic figures: There are ten guerrilla regiments operating in each of ten war areas. Each of the 100 regiments snipes off ten Japanese soldiers daily, thus giving a total of 1,000 Japanese deaths daily, or 365,000 yearly, from guerrilla warfare alone. The General claimed that a well-established guerrilla base could tie up 50,000 Japanese in police and garrison duty.

> Twenty old U. S. residents of China released in Shanghai a survey of conditions in the nine Japanese-occupied Chinese cities of Nanking, Kaifeng, Suchow, Chinkiang, Canton, Soochow, Hangchow, Hankow and Tsinan. The cities' pre-war combined population of 5,800,000 had shrunk, they said, to 2,400,000. The Chinese puppet administrations were "weak, inefficient and corrupt," business was depressed, there was widespread unemployment, prostitution was rampant and narcotics were sold openly under Japanese auspices. Their conclusion: "The whole former trend of constructive development has been shattered, and devastation, chaos and oppression brought in a regime which has yet to manifest any significantly constructive influence."

> While lack of artillery alone makes the Chinese hesitant to attack any important objective as yet, this summer is one of high Chinese expectations. A new batch of planes should arrive from the U. S. before autumn. A whole school of fledgling pilots who are being trained in the far Chinese Southwest should be matured for fighting. An airplane factory brought over the hills to the interior should be assembled and working. New recruits from Szechwan, Kweichow and Hunan are scheduled to be ready for action this autumn. The $1,500,000 worth of trucks bought in the U. S. with the help of an Export-Import Bank loan should go far toward solving the Chinese military transport problem.

> Not escaping the Chinese is the quick change that has come over Japan's military propagandists. Obviously the military cannot admit that a people so historically lacking in backbone as the Chinese are unconquerable. But, lacking victories to announce, they have chosen to blame their lack of successes on other peoples, particularly the British. They held a bonfire of British goods in Anking; the garrison at Chefoo hung up anti-British banners; an anti-British mass meeting was held at Tientsin.

The British and Japanese began negotiations at Tokyo over the still blockaded British Concession at Tientsin. The Japanese wanted the discussions to include such subjects as British cooperation with Japan (instead of China) on currency matters; the British insisted on confining the talks to the Tientsin question. British Chancellor of the Exchequer Sir John Simon announced in London that the British would continue to support the Chinese dollar, come what may. Meanwhile, 100 members of a Japanese patriotic society demonstrated before the British Embassy in Tokyo. Bitterest about the war was Colonel Moriaki Shimizu, director of the Army Information Bureau, who in an anniversary manifesto said: "Never in history have the Japanese people borne in their hearts such hatred for Britain as exists today."

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