WAR IN CHINA: Inexcusable Blunder

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A new leaf was turned over in world history last week as even the most careful newsorgans splashed such headlines as:

"CHINESE TRAP 10,000 JAPANESE TROOPS"

"CHINESE CLOSE IN ON FOE AT YIHSIEN"

"JAPANESE DEFEAT A MAJOR DISASTER: CRISIS IN CABINET"

"MILITARY PRESTIGE OF JAPAN LOWERED: PREMIER TO

QUIT-JAPANESE HEAR"

As the most exciting days in modern Chinese history ripped past, every fresh dispatch made it clearer that first reports of the Battle of Taierchwang had not erred in suggesting this was going to prove the first major open field defeat of the Japanese since their Empire was Awaked up by Commodore Perry. Continuing last week to taste Japanese blood in a big way, the Chinese pushed northward through bombed, shelled and ruined Taierchwang in which not a house was left standing according to white eyewitnesses, chased Japanese 20 miles to Yihsien, where the Mikado's routed forces finally made a stand. Chinese artillery was moved up into the surrounding hills, shelled Yihsien fiercely until half this ancient city was in flames.

Wave after wave of Chinese troops bravely assaulted the heavy walls of Yihsien from three sides, and wave after wave broke, receded under withering Japanese machine-gun fire. The defenders' ammunition soon began to run low. Japanese planes then started dropping ammunition and food into Yihsien. With Chinese batteries blazing away this was ticklish work. Much of what the Japanese dropped fell outside the walls, helped the Chinese attackers.

Since the Chinese knew that powerful Japanese rescue forces were on the way from Tsingtao and Tientsin via Tsinan, beating their way down railways harassed by Chinese Communist guerillas, Yihsien had to be captured quickly if at all. Therefore some Chinese Christian soldiers formed on the spot "The Good Friday Battalion," vowed to take Yihsien before Easter Sunday or die in the attempt.

They were spurred by a rousing, nationwide radio address by Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek entitled "Why I believe in Jesus."

Last week the grand total of Japanese losses at Taierchwang was conservatively estimated by neutral foreigners at between 7,000 and 10,000, but the Chinese Generalissimo's headquarters estimated that the Imperial Japanese Government had now massed half-a-million men for the purpose of attempting this week to wipe out their defeats, smash through to Suchow. Best reconstruction from the battlefield of the Taierchwang fighting was sent by Chicago Daily Newsman A. T. Steele: "0verconfidence and contempt for the Chinese army had much to do with the Japanese defeat. The Chinese set a trap with Taierchwang as the bait and the Japanese bit, and bit hard, by advancing on the village through a corridor lined with Chinese divisions. By thus exposing their flanks the Japanese committed an inexcusable military blunder, but they had gotten away with it before and thought they could do it again. They failed to take cognizance of the new Chinese fighting spirit. The Chinese showed that they are learning to cope with Japanese superiority in offensive weapons by abandoning positional warfare in favor of mobility."