The Weary Wait

Communist armies exploded into action again along the Shanghai front, which had lain quiet for 15 uneasy days. From the top floor of Broadway Mansions, Shanghai's tallest apartment building, tenants saw sharp flashes of cannon fire across the Whangpoo River, and the glow of burning villages farther to the north. At week's end, Red General Chen Yi's forces, driving relentlessly from the west and southwest, were within eight miles of the city. Simultaneously, two Red armies from the northwest knifed in toward Woosung Fort at the confluence of the Whangpoo and Yangtze rivers. At one point on the Woosung defense perimeter, Nationalist troops threw back the attackers after a bitter hand-to-hand battle.

South of the city, the Communist vanguard surged on to a point halfway between Shanghai and the refugee Nationalist capital of Canton. More than 350 miles of the Shanghai-Canton railway were in Red hands. Another Communist spearhead was within 150 miles of the vital seaport of Foochow. West of Shanghai, Nationalist General Pai Chung-hsi's armies withdrew hurriedly as the rugged, battle-tried armies of General Lin Piao opened attack on the industrial center of Hankow, gateway to the "rice bowl of China."

Meanwhile, Shanghai's Nationalist defenders continued to rule the city with a trembling iron hand. Firing squads continued public executions of fifth columnists, black marketeers and other culprits. On outlying roads, hundreds of laborers sweated to throw up machine-gun emplacements and earthworks. In the confusion, however, many of the earthworks were built facing not the Communists, but one another.

After three days the Nationalist line blocking the Reds from Woosung still held firm. Said a Chinese Central News Agency dispatch: ". . . in a sea of blood and death the troops are fighting on & on." To bolster morale, Shanghai's new mayor, Chen Liang, rode out to the front in a truck loaded with gifts for the troops--20 live pigs, 20 cases of cigarettes, 3,000 sandwiches and 600 towels. At Lunghua airport, U.S. airlines announced the departure of their last planes from Shanghai. The planes took off with passengers jammed three to a seat.

If Red artillery could get into position to block the Whangpoo at Woosung, Shanghai would be cut off from the major source of its food, the only source of its coal, fuel oil and raw materials for its factories. Only one question remained: Would the Reds unleash a knockout blow, or would they try to starve the city out? Shanghailanders, lying awake through the long nights, listened to the gunfire and the frenzied barking of frightened dogs in the streets, and waited wearily for the answer.

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