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Show JAPANESE BREAK THRU AT2P0INTS Chinese Fighting Desperately Des-perately To Hold Their Lines SHANGHAI, Oct. 2G (U.R) The Chinese defense of Shanghai appeared to be cracking tonight under the week-long ,pounding of Japanese Jap-anese artillery, naval barrages, bar-rages, aerial bombings and infantry assaults. Widespread fires lit up the skies over Chapei and Paoshan on the northern edge or the International Settlement, reminiscent of the Chinese withdrawal from Shanghai Shang-hai in 1932. In a pincer move, designed to cut off thousands of Chinese from Chiang Kai-shek's second line of defense, the Japanese broke through at two vital points. Tonight, Kiangwan, northeastern northeast-ern suburb of Shanghai, was in flames. Chinese troops were attempting at-tempting to turn back the Japanese Japan-ese offensive from the northwest where the Japanese pierced the line in the vicinity of Tazang. In the Chapel area the Chinese were fighting desperately to hold off the assault of Japanese troops from the west where they had penetrated as far as the Shanghai Nanking railway, near Chenju. Chapei and the north station was under heavy Japanese shelling. Foreign military experts said that the next 24 hours should tell whether the Chinese could withdraw with-draw in order and force to their second line of defense, the long-prepared long-prepared Chiang Kai-shek line of steel, concrete and barbed wire fortifications, or were faced with disaster. Chinese spokesmen admitted the Japanese had broken through at Tazang, north of Shanghai, and at Miaohang, east of Tazang. The Chinese withdrew sullenly and slowly, fighting for every yard. It was not a rout. The Chinese Chi-nese hoped to withdraw all their men to the new line, roughly five miles west of the one which the . Japanese cracked today, and there i begin the fight anew. |
