World Battlefronts: BATTLE OF ASIA: Victory in Hunan

In the dusty hills of central Hunan province, a resurgent Chinese army broke a Japanese drive, then followed through in counteroffensive. No longer were the Japs threatening a U.S. Fourteenth Air

Force base; the Chinese were now threatening a Jap base.

When the Japanese had started from Packing, they were merely out to tidy up the interior before they turned to guard the coast against possible U.S. landings. Their objective was Chihkiang, a Fourteenth Air Force base 250 miles southeast of Chungking. They ran into a Chinese army which first retreated, leaving suicide garrisons behind. Then, with fresh troops, American-trained and equipped, flown in from other fronts, they counterattacked, relieved the main garrison and sent another column to within 15 miles of Packing.

The Chinese, commanded by Lieut. General Wang Yao-wu, veteran of Shanghai and Nanking, did the actual fighting. But behind them was a new support network. Americans planned strategy, directed air cover, assisted artillery, ran communications, supervised medical care, provided air and truck supply.*Lieut. General Claire L. Chennault's airmen controlled the skies and softened up Packing with 100 tons of bombs.

Spring & Hope. North of Hunan there were significant stirrings in Hupeh province. Crack Chinese troops—for years tied down to the job of watching Chinese Communists—had about-faced, toward the Japanese. Under General Hu Tsung-nan, one of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's trusted lieutenants, they joined other Chinese trying to wrest back the Jap-occupied air base at Laohokow, 375 miles northeast of Chungking.

Far to the east, in free territory behind Japanese lines, other Chinese troops were stirring too. Along the thin Japanese shell of coastline, Chinese broke through to enter Foochow, one of China's important ports, and captured the nearby airport. Farther north along the coast, other Chinese occupied Sinchang on the bight of land that leads into Hangchow port. No one yet knew whether these were merely the desultory surges of guerrilla warfare or whether the Japanese were really falling back to the north.

Jubilant Chungking propagandists, overwhelmed with spring and hope, predicted a "general counteroffensive."