The Japanese Expeditionary Forces to China issued the following communique yesterda:
An announcement was made in Hankow yesterday to the effect that two Japanese divisions, comprising approximately 20,000 men, had been wiped out the vicinity of Tehan.
The basis for this extraordinary claim appears to be a simple report said to have been received from the front.
The feats of Chinese propagandists to embroider upon such unauthenticated information are already well known.
"When one takes into consideration that in the north the fall of Sinyang is imminent; that the Tapleh range, forming the Honan-Hupeh border, is about to be crossed by the Japanese forces; that the advance of the Japanese forces on the Yangtze has made spectacular progress during the last few days and that the encirclement of Yangsin is about to be completed—all of them indicating the inevitable collapse of the Wuhan defences—one cannot escape the feeling that the claim made in Hankow was but a canard concocted, almost in jest, by the Chinese command which was confronted with the sad realization that it was the last Double Tenth it would have the good fortune to celebrate in Hankow.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.