"Invigorated"

Two years ago Mme Chiang Kaishek, wife of the Generalissimo, took command of the Chinese Air Force, became the first woman to command any air force. Acting as her own purchasing agent, Mme Chiang spent an estimated $20,000,000 for war planes, reputedly saved China at least an equal sum in "customary graft." One reason why the hotter-headed Chinese leaders finally persuaded cautious Generalissimo Chiang to engage in war with Japan was that they thought Mme Chiang's war planes were going to bomb Japanese cities.

Last week twelve war planes from China (said by the Japanese to be Soviet planes) finally flew across the 120-mile-wide Formosa Strait, escorted by pursuit planes, and rained bombs on Japanese-owned Formosa. They flew so high that accurate bombing was impossible. From the ground the attacking craft could be seen with the naked eye only as minute specks. Eight were killed, 29 wounded. Property damage was small.

Formosa is some 750 miles from Tokyo, but the fact remained that "Japanese soil" had at last been bombed in the seventh month of the war. Chinese did not, however, give the credit to Mme Chiang Kaishek. They remembered last week that all during the Japanese siege of Shanghai, defending Chinese troops complained that her planes rarely ventured to bomb the Japanese in daylight, bombed them only ineffectively at night, failed to sink or score a direct hit on the Japanese flagship Idzumo which lay anchored a fair target in the Whangpoo, week after week.

Four days after the bombing of Formosa, Associated Press flashed from Hankow, where Chinese Government censors handle every dispatch, the news that Secretary General of Aviation, Mme Chiang, "is authoritatively understood to be relinquishing the position. The strain of war-time duties is generally known to have taxed her health and this probably will be given as the reason for her resignation in the near future." Actually during the past month Mme Chiang has been diving quietly in the British Crown Colony of Hong Kong, leaving the active command of what she always called "my airforce" to others.

Shanghai dispatches meanwhile reported better news of China's "invigorated" airforce. Some of the Japanese forces which had reached the north bank of the Yellow River in their advance toward the so-called "Chinese Hindenburg Line" were reported "broken up" by bombs. A captive balloon from which Japanese observers were directing artillery fire was attacked from the air and shot down in flames. This week Japanese operations against the Hindenburg Line continued with slow, progressive success, but Generalissimo Chiang's troops had begun offering improved resistance, due observers thought to "invigorated" bombing.

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