Tientsin, Feb. 3.
Complete devastation met a Japan ese detachment as it entered Hokien, not far from the Peiping-Pukow Railway at the confluence of the Hutou and Huloo Rivers on January 24, according to belated feld repens Feaching here today.
Besides demolishing all available highways, roads, and other lanes in the vicinity that might be used for passage, the Communist Eighth Route Army had reduced the town to a mass of rubble. Commandecring of food by the retreating Chinese had been so thorough and systematic that snot _a mouthful remained, the report said.
Faced with imminent starvation, the population of 40,000 in the southern Hopei town had fed, leaving only ten Chinese inside the' town, according to the report.
Only 2,000 of the former residents have so far returned to the ruined town—Domei.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.