Qualified Glory

The Jap still held the vital coastline of southeast China, but in the interior the offensive was falling from his hands. Tokyo had its explanation. It was that troops were being withdrawn from Chekiang and Kiangsi Provinces "to secure a . . . position for future action."

Perhaps Tokyo was telling the truth. Perhaps troops were being moved out of China for the Manchukuoan or the Indian front. All China's dauntless, underarmed soldiers knew was that wherever they met the enemy, he took a beating.

Last week, while the token U.S. Air Force in China blasted at Japanese-held objectives, ground forces of the Chinese took two pearls of potentially great price. They pushed the enemy back through Chekiang Province and retook two of the finest military airdromes in China; one at Lishui, only 700 miles from the great naval base at Nagasaki; another at Chuhsien, only a few bomber steps farther. China knew what could be done to Japan from there.

To hold such assets as the two big fields and all the other subsidiary airdromes built with plodding care, and not to be able to use them for lack of bombers, was tough. But the Chinese fought on, took great cuts of the eastern railroads, pressed south as well as east. This week Chungking reported that its troops were only 40 miles from Canton, home of the revolution. The enemy was not as tough and strong as he used to be.

Immediately, that fact was encouraging. But in the long view it might be the portent of disaster. If, with the troops moved from China, the Jap took India, shutting off U.S. aid, China's glory might become China's woe, might upset all the United Nations' long-range plans.

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