Chinese outpost commands a gorge of the Salween River, the Wu-ti Ho or Bottomless River.
The Japanese hold the opposite shore.
Notice that these troops wear no helmets but have a good light machine gun, probably made in China.
Entrenchments in depth cover the Chinese positions, as engineers demolish a road in the background.
These relatively well-equipped troops are crack mountain fighters, thoroughly understand use of mountain mortars and grenades.
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All last winter fighting China was generally described to the U.S. as a nation hanging on the ropes.
Her spokesmen complained that she had been better off when she was fighting Japan alone than now, with the U.S. and Britain her allies.
Madame Chiang Kai-shek, visiting the U.S., electrified Congress with her poignant appeal for military aid.
All the news from China seemed bad.
There was thus no warning when this spring the Chinese armies turned in their greatest victories in five years. The Japanese launched a sharp offensive at the bend of the Yangtze and were cut to pieces with casualties given at 55,000. Meanwhile in the southwest, along the Salween River, where the pictures on this page were taken, the Chinese threw back the Japs at Mamienkwan (Horse-Face) Pass. The pictures show the crack Chinese troops who for a year have held shut the "Back Door" of China into Yunnan Province, where the Burma Road crosses the Salween. Some fight as guerrillas behind the Jap lines, beheading sentries, ambushing patrols, blowing up barracks. But this is an army of well-trained regular troops, highly skilled in mountain warfare. On the Jap side of the river it is Jap policy to burn down all the villages and strip the countryside of everything, but they cannot get across the river.
The main spring fighting, however, ravaged the lake and river area that hangs from the deep bend of the Yangtze above Hunan Province, which feeds much of Central China with an annual surplus of 650,000 tons of rice. Here 90,000 Japs got across the rice fields and into the mountains before the Chinese armies closed in on all sides, spearheaded by the crack 18th Army. On May 31, just after the Japs announced that the Chinese armies had been destroyed, five Jap divisions were routed
The biggest thing that had ever happened to the Chinese troops was the discovery, when planes came over, that they were Chinese and American, bombing and strafing the close-marching Jap columns. Faster than the Japs had advanced, they retreated, evacuating a long stretch of the Yangtze's south bank and giving China something to celebrate on the war's sixth anniversary, July 7.
A small part of this fine triumph was due to aid given by the U.S., chiefly in the air.
Much more of it, however, was due only to China's eternal fighting spirit.
CHINESE WOUNDED AND SICK ARE HELPED TO THE REAR. SALWEEN RIVER COUNTRY IS A HOTBED OF MALARIA AND CHIESE TROOPS LACK ADEQUATE MEDICAL SUPPLIES.
The Burma Road is blown up by Chinese engineers at the 709-kilometer mark, in case Japanese should cross the river.
Chinese long ago destroyed Hui-tung Bridge across the Salween River and last February repulsed three Jap attempts to cross the river.
Dynamite holes are dug deeper by Chinese troops.
Some will be used for tank traps, others for mines, and some as machine-gun nests covering the tank traps and minefields.
Simple engineering of this kind is a specialty of hard-working Chinese Army.
Chinese reserves, in sandals and shorts, short on equipment but long on marching, move up to Salween River front.
This unit had fought in Shanghai, Hankow and Burma.
In foreground is machine-gun squad, followed by prized ammunition mules.
In maneuvers, Chinese troops crossing a small river display their usual mastery of individual camouflage.
Ropes have been slung across the ford to give the men a handhold, as this is one of the fast mountain streams of western Yunnan Province.
Commander of Salween River front is Chinese Lieutenant General Soong Hsi-lien (center).
Here, flanked by Brigadier Generals Li Hsueh-pin and Chang Shao-shuen, he studies map, while sentries keep watch on thatched roofs of village in background.
