Japs advance near Rangoon! Chinese 50th Army attacks Hanoi!

ACTION SUMMARY: The Chinese Army advanced on two fronts today as fighting opened around Hanoi, and a furious fighting continued around Wuchow. The 50th Chinese Army with one corps of 10,000 men crossed the French Indochinese border rapidly, descending from the mountains to attack the 9,400 Japanese soldiers dug in around Hanoi. Three more Chinese Corps are expected to reinforce the effort at Chaing Kai-Shek's southern offensive heats up. A furious attack ordered from Chungking flooded over the trenches near Wuchow as 60,000 Nationalist soldiers smashed against Japanese front-line forces, killing > 500 men. Supporting the attack were the Hengchow Nationalist bombers that struck the Japanese artillery positions from low altitude.

Successes on the ground in China, however, was met with setback in Burma as the 1st Burma Brigade, on the march from Moulmein to intercept a Japanese probe from Cambodia, was struck by the advancing Japanese first. The brigade was driven into the jungles towards Georgetown as the Japanese occupied defenceless Moulmein, giving the Empire its first foothold on the Indian Ocean and Burma.

Off Malaya, the Japanese began offering its transports land-based aircover as RAF bombers flying from Singapore grew more accurate in their sorties. Despite flying against Japanese Oscar fighters, the RAF managed to bomb three transports off Khota Bharu with only three losses in the air. Slipping their anchors, the Japanese concentration off Khota Bharu set sail for the Southeast. Uncertainty reigns in the Allied command as to whether these transports are empty or not. If no, it is possible the enemy is making his move towards Borneo.



Activity was quiet elsewhere. In the Phillipines, Japanese forces advanced from Northern Luzon to occupy defeneseless San Marcelino on the west coast. A tremendous air raid on Manila Bay did little to hurt the few Allied defeders still there as most of the Phillipino and American forces have since withdrawn to the Bataan Peninsula.

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