Word: changsha
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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...
...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...
...Japan had staked "face" on taking Changsha, and lost...
...Chinese needed more than logic to sustain them. For four years they had cowered in dugouts, trekked thousands of miles, hungered, frozen, fought, died. What they had fought for, they told themselves bitterly, not even a friendly power could give away. And now, while Japanese troops hammered at Changsha (see p. 28), Washington's diplomacy hammered on China's nerves...