Basic Training

Chungking had good news aplenty this week. On the coast, Japanese forces, apparently redeploying against a possible U.S. landing, abandoned the great port of Foochow. The high command announced a new Chinese offensive in the south, with the capture of Hochih, a heavily fortified rail town guarding Japan's supply route to Indo-China. And Chungking was still savoring its victory in the campaign for Chihkiang (TIME, May 21).

Architect of this victory was General Wang Yao-wu, a peppery, 40-year-old Shantung man. Stocky, muscular and tanned, like most Shantung peasants, he has a ferocious temper, a vivid and profane vocabulary. He is of the very core of the old Chinese Army, a Whampoa Academy cadet who fought his way up from platoon to army group commander. But in Hunan he used methods long neglected in China:

P: General Wang, the man at the scene, was in command. There was no mid-battle, long-distance masterminding from Chungking, as happened during the East China campaign last year.

P: Troops were not frittered away, or abandoned. Crack armies were moved into the rear battle area ready to support the forces actually engaged.

P: Air support, available on a European scale for the past year, was for the first time linked with ground action in one cohesive, well directed plan.

P: Supplies flowed to the front in a regular stream. Troops were not anchored down by the need to hoard fixed quantities of food and ammunition.

The new methods worked well, as the U.S. officers who suggested them had guessed they would. The Japanese who had marched from Packing toward Chihkiang were marching back as fast as their stubby legs would carry them. And hot on their heels was irate General Wang.

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