GUERRILLA ACTION MAY SLOW FURTHER JAPANESE CONQUEST

If resistance from the more than 60 million Chinese who live in the Far Eastern territories newly conquered by Japan is as successful as it is in China, the Japanese will be forced to keep a considerable number of men away from the fighting fronts to police the area, according to Charles S. Gardener '21, associate professor of Chinese History last year.

Guerrilla warfare, which has been troubling the Japanese for years, in China, has already begun in their occupation of the new territories they have conquered, according to a Berlin broadcast Monday, quoting Japanese newspapers.

Gardener spent a year in Shansi province, northern China, in 1939, and had many opportunities to witness the effectiveness of Chinese guerrillas who have developed a fine science after five years of war.

"In actual fighting," he said, "the Chinese had developed a guerrilla technique that has proved amazingly successful. For example, they fire several rounds of ammunition at a Japanese post, so enraging the Japanese that a punitive expedition is sent out. The Chinese fall back before the soldiers, luring them on. After a futile chase, the expedition is either ambushed on its return, or the post is attacked while the garrison is depleted."

In Tatung, northern China, where important iron and coal mines are located, the guerrillas have cut production, which the Japanese claimed they would increase ten times in a year, to less than a half of what it formerly was, according to Gardener.

"The Japanese had tried on numerous occasions to wipe out the guerrillas," Gardener revealed, "but no matter how many times they were beaten, the Chinese always came back. They seriously upset mining on numerous occasions by sneaking up to the mines, overpowering the guards, and smashing the pump and hoist machinery. Japanese miners were killed wholesale underground when the mines filled with water."

Attempts to increase the cotton crop in the province met with equal failure, according to Gardener.

Unfortunately, according to Gardener, the help of the natives cannot be counted on. On the whole they have felt that they were fighting the English war and not their own.