"Scorched Earth Policy"

Of China's 4,480,992 square miles, Japanese forces held: This week: 642,412 Week Ago: 639,272 Month Ago: 625,272 Year Ago: 500,000

Six Japanese planes with chattering ma-chine guns chased China's shrill-voiced, slim-waisted Premier & Generalissimo for 175 miles last week, but at last his sleek U. S. Boeing with a U. S. pilot at the controls outdistanced all pursuit. The Dictator and Mme Chiang were set down in the remote countryside of Kiangsi, according to some reports, Hankow, said others. There were even rumors that in hurriedly quitting Nanking, their abandoned capital, they were lucky to escape not only the Japanese but also Chinese Communists who had plotted to seize the Premier again, as they did when he was "kidnapped" last year (TIME, Dec. 21, 1936 et seq.).

Meanwhile, around Nanking utterly raw, undrilled Chinese youths, most of whom scarcely knew how to use a rifle, were flung against advancing Japanese regulars, and horribly butchered. The crack, German-drilled Chinese 88th Division under ruthless officers, conserving its own strength, drove the Chinese recruits forward and shot in the back those who broke and ran. Twelve miles from Nanking 300 Chinese were surrounded atop a hill by Japanese who set fire to the long grass. It set fire to the trees, burned fiercely completely around the hill, slowly forcing the 300 Chinese to the top. There Japanese machine guns firing into the ring of fire & smoke, killed them almost to a man.

Tokyo was highly impatient to have Nanking captured last week on a mystic date particularly gratifying to the Son of Heaven, namely the 12th Day of the 12th Month of the 12th Year of His Imperial Majesty's reign which is known as Showa or "Light and Peace." The ancient Ming walls of Nanking, 40 ft. high and 30 ft. thick, stoutly defended last week, made it impossible to do more on 12-12-12 than breach the walls at two places, hoist the Japanese flag prematurely.

The Japanese military were also busy last week getting together such Chinese as they could find who were willing to form under Japanese tutelage a "Chinese Government" to replace that cleared out of Nanking (TIME, Nov. 29). There was talk of persuading China's all but forgotten "Scholar War Lord" Marshal Wu Pei-fu to abandon permanently the Buddhist monastery into which he had long ago retired (TIME, April 16, 1928 et seq.), and which reports had him often leaving. A bird actually in Japan's hand was Mr. Wang Keh-min, much heard of in 1935 when he was Acting Chairman of the Peiping Political Council. At that time the Japanese forced Mr. Wang out and had the Council dissolved, explaining that he was not sufficiently pro-Japanese. This week they seemed to think Wang would make a fine puppet head for China.

In Shanghai, Generalissimo Chiang's big banker brother-in-law T. V. Soong was standing pat in the International Settlement, despite reports that he had fled. "I predict," he declared "that within three months--providing we can hold out, which I am sure we can--Japan will be on the verge of bankruptcy and facing revolution!" To achieve this aim, Chinese were burning down whole cities, such as Chinkiang 40 miles east of Nanking, destroying millions of dollars worth of Chinese property. This was announced as a "scorched earth policy" to make conquest as difficult as possible for Japan. It took 48 hours of steady slugging at the walls of Nanking and bitter hand-to-hand fighting in the streets before Japanese announced they had captured it this week. Almost simultaneously a radiogram from fugitive Premier and Generalissimo Chiang declared he had "ordered the evacuation of Nanking."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.