World War: BATTLE OF CHINA: Honorable Sour Grapes

Swift as the crackle of the million popping firecrackers, the news flashed through Chungking: Changsha was still in Chinese hands, the Japanese drive was smashed. Into Chungking’s twisting streets poured thousands of cheering citizens. The red glow of their torches cast dancing shadows on the ruins of their bomb-blasted homes. This was victory. For the first time in two years Chinese had inflicted a major defeat on the Japanese Army.

To hot-tempered, half-pint General Hsueh Yo went the credit. When the Japanese columns first stabbed at his troops General Hsueh had not tried to hold them. To make effective his numerical superiority he tried to outflank the drive, throw his men at the Japanese rear supply lines. As the Japanese drive forced it in, General Hsueh’s line strained back like a bowstring. But the ends remained securely anchored deep behind the Japanese flanks.

As they neared Changsha, the Japanese dropped parachutists, signaled their plain-clothes men within the city. Japanese infantry penetrated the gates, raided the city. But they were tired. Sensing the moment, General Hsueh ordered a counterattack. Back snapped the bowstring, the Japanese with it. Foreign correspondents, whom the Japanese had summoned to witness a victory, saw from Japanese planes long columns of Japanese troops retreating.

Last week the Japanese polished up the sour-grapes formula. Withdrawal was taking place, said Japanese headquarters, because “the purpose of the campaign has been accomplished.” Since the military advantage of taking Changsha was to block the supply routes which lead through it (TIME, Oct. 6), this was nonsense. With a straight face the Tokyo press declared that the Japanese Army was withdrawing after victory because “Japanese forces can no longer bear to see innocent Chinese people suffering the war’s disaster.”

From Shanghai, too, came reports reflecting the unbelief of foreigners 575 miles from the scene of battle in the strength of China’s new armies. The facts, however, were bright as a bayonet:

> This had been one of the great battles of the China War, engaging a quarter million or more men.

> The Japanese had used at least five regular divisions against Chinese troops which had little artillery and air support.

> Japan had staked “face” on taking Changsha, and lost.

> The Chinese had won this victory on their own, before U.S. aid had a chance to become effective.

But Chungking’s celebration was soon ended. The Japanese Army, stung by its Central China defeat, suddenly uncorked a drive in North China. Crossing the muddy Yellow River, a three-year-old barrier to Japanese advance, it seized the strategic rail center of Chengchow. If the Japanese could consolidate and drive from Chengchow west along the railway toward Sian, their achievement would be greater than the conquest of Changsha.