FTER all night mopping-up operations Japanese troops were in complete occupation of Yochow, Canton-Hankow Railway town about 130 kilometres north of Changsha, at 6 o'clock yesterday morning, a Domei message from the front claimed.
Japanese shock troops forced their way into the walled town shortly after 8 o'clock on Friday night and engaged the Chinese defenders in bitter hand-to-hand fighting.
Ey morning the last stragglers who had remained to cover the retreat of the main Chinese force had been rounded up and dawn saw the Rising Sun flag flying above the walls in the chill wintry breeze while shouts of "banzai" echoed across Lake Tungting.
Japanese troops which had been Pursuing the Chinese along the Canton-Hankow Railway occupied Yochow at 8.10 o'clock on Friday night, the headquarters of the Japanese Ex-Peditionary Force in Central China claimed in a communique issued at 10 o'clock yesterday morning.
Chinese troops at Changsha started to destroy the aerodrome there on Saturday morning, according to a report brought to an undisclosed base by the pilot of a reconnaissance plane.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.