The Jap Strikes First

A momentous conference in Chungking closed last week in deafening silence. For a day and a half Lord Louis Mountbatten, Allied Commander in Southeast Asia, had talked with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, with top Chinese generals, with U.S. Lieut. Generals Joseph Stilwell and Brehon Somervell. Then, looking tired, with crow's-feet showing at the corners of his eyes, Lord Louis hurried back to India.

There were no communiques. But the problems were clear. First & foremost, with good will and common sense, order had to be brought into the chaotic, overlapping organization of the continental front against Japan. Another problem was Burma. The men at Chungking certainly weighed the great difficulties of a campaign to re-establish an overland link with China. But, whatever they decided, the Jap had already struck the first blow.

A Bridgehead Lost. To China, the Jap blow was serious. Six hundred miles southwest of Chungking, the enemy moved from northern Burma into Yuennan. His columns struck at a pocket of Chinese troops who for a year and a half have held, against attack and malaria, a 13-mile bridgehead including two ferry crossings, on the Salween River's west bank.

The fighting took place on this war's loftiest battleground--10,000 ft. above sea level. Foot soldiers crawled up steep trails, through barbed, prickly grass. They used grenades, rifles, and mountain guns; they panted for breath and belabored pack animals. The advantage lay with the Japs, in whose rear good motor roads fed supplies and reinforcements. Behind the Chinese, communications were slow and tortuous.

If the Jap could seize the ferry slips on the Salween's west bank, he would achieve a substantial success. For the disputed bridgehead could play a key role in an Allied push into northern Burma.

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