Into the Clear Sky?

From Chungking, speculating on the Japanese offensive in Central China, TIME Correspondent Theodore H. White last week sent this report on the battle raging 300 miles away on the winding Yangtze:

All last week in the scraggly foothills that fringe the mouth of the Yangtze gorges, the Chinese and Japanese were engaged in the most furious fighting since Burma fell. Only a few authentic facts of the battle could be learned. A fortnight before, the Japanese had launched a drive in Central China (TIME, May 31). Scouring the triangle between Hankow and the Yangtze gorges of marauding guerrillas, they secured bases on the northern shores of Tungting Lake in such places as Mitushih, Hwajung and Yuayung, then drove west across the flatlands under a withering curtain of aerial strafing.

By last week their 60-mile advance had reached the end of the flatlands, cutting a bloody trail through provincial troops guarding the key passes of Yuyangkwan and Changyang.

China Rallies. This brought the Japanese up squarely against the mountains. Here they abandoned their heavy artillery and well-stocked pack trains and took to the straggling, slippery trails, where the Chinese were dug in for the main battle. And there, for the first time, the Japanese met stiff resistance. Against crack Chinese units strung out south along a 50-mile front they threw their full strength. But their proudest advance, from Changyang over the mountains to Tuchenwan, netted them only 15 miles.

Against this gain the Chinese on their side this week could record the first solid tactical success in three weeks: swiftly marshaling a unit of undisclosed strength behind the southern flank, they turned the Japanese line, broke into the pass of Yuyangkwan, ousted a Japanese garrison and sent troops hotfoot after the Japanese retreating toward the east. The Chinese Air Force, for the first time in three years, was making an all-out effort to support ground operations, and elements of America's Fourteenth Air Force moved up to the Central China area for strategic bombing.

If the success at Yuyangkwan could be further exploited, the Japanese position was not enviable. The bulk of their strength, estimated at several divisions, was concentrated on the northern flank for a breakthrough, presumably against the western outlet of the Yangtze gorges. Now this concentration, outflanked, its rear threatened, would either have to achieve that break-through within a minimum of time, or retreat.

Beyond the Mountains. Chungking was 300 miles away from the battle, and finger-thin gorges and towering peaks lay between the Japanese and the Chinese capital. Chungking was not threatened nor in any immediate danger.

But the campaign had already netted the Japanese the most solid series of benefits since they cut off the Burma Road: 1) they devastated one of the fairest, richest corners of China, the Tungting Lake area of northern Hunan, which annually fed not only hundreds of thousands of troops but far-distanct provinces; 2) they cleared the riverway, brought gunboats and launches as far as Ichang to make of that spot a jumping-off base for a Chungking drive; 3 ) they struck a punishing blow at China's economic life.

Inland waterways in Hupeh, winding through rivers and lakes, famous for their river pirates, were transformed by war into one of China's most important smuggling networks. Cloth, medicine, cigarets and cotton pour through these channels from provinces as far distant as Chekiang, Anhwei, Kiangsu. Now Japan's troops straddle these inland waterways. To cut traffic entirely, they have to advance only 20 miles more, to Santouping's fortifications.

With Free China cut off from the sea and from Allied resources to the west, the threat to Chungking in this sense is real. In the capital, little people assessed it in their own way. The price of rice rose immediately and sharply, raw cotton reached the equivalent of $2.50 (U.S.) a pound.

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