Objective: Limited

In the bleak Nanking headquarters of the Japanese Imperial Army, thin, razor-keen General Shunroku Hata was brightly confident. He boasted: "As the rising sun melts thinly frozen ice, so the Japanese Army is overcoming Chinese troops." The year: 1939.

Episode at Changteh. Unmelting Chinese troops last week crept back through the blackened ruins of Changteh, harassing the bedraggled, bandy-legged Japanese in retreat toward their Yangtze River bases. The communiques once again created an impression of another violent battle in a continuous, violent war. The impression was exaggerated: the battle of Changteh was violent enough, but it was an interlude in an essentially unviolent war. As in previous foraging expeditions, the Japs had pushed into the Tungting Lake rice bowl of central China. The Chinese 57th Division fought with hand grenades and bayonets until only 300 were left, then escaped from the stricken city.

Six days later, the survivors returned with reinforcements to retake Changteh. The Japs seized or burned the rice stores, retreated when it was obvious that the Chinese lines would only bend, not break. Once again Chinese resistance and Jap half measures had disposed of a threat to U.S. air bases in central China, a threat which might have been serious if the Japs had chosen to bring enough strength against the ill-fed, ill-equipped Chinese.

Battle Lines, 1943. China's battlefronts now are fluid and generally quiet. Occasional outbursts scorch and blacken the countryside, but they always have a limited objective. In some sectors remote from the heart of Free China, the Japs and the Chinese even, fraternize at arms' distance. Chinese and Japanese officers sometimes share fabulous profits from the smuggling of tungsten, cotton, wool, tin, tung oil, U.S. bank notes. Chinese divisions in the war-quiet areas operate their own factories and farms, direct their energies toward a stable military economy. The Japanese rarely molest them. These activities cannot be judged by Western standards; they are the natural consequences of a long, stalemated war which neither side is equipped to win.

Lao Ping (Old Soldier), the Chinese equivalent of the U.S. Army's G.I. Joe, is a husky, shaven-pated peasant who has learned the tricks of silent deployment, timely retreat, ingenious ambuscade. But China's armies are defensive, their determination is only to hold on until Allied help comes. Many of Japan's 400,000 troops in China proper are overage, battle-green. Picked, raw units are sometimes sent to China for battle training, often initiate minor battles to get this training. But in general the debilitating psychological effect of the stalemate is as bad for the Japs as it is for the Chinese. The apathy and slow disintegration in China bear on the Allies' great gamble in Asia: that, when taps are blown in Europe and the South Pacific, Lao Ping will somehow be ready to greet G.I. Joe with cheers and a ready trigger finger.

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