793.94/14153: Telegram
The Consul General at Hankow (Josselyn) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 22—6 a.m.]
1. (1) Responsible military officials make in private conversation no suggestion that with the fall of Wuhan there will be on their part any thought of capitulation to Japan.
(2) They observe that the Japanese have identified the capture of Wuhan with the destruction of Chiang Kai Shek’s military power, but now that the main Chinese force is being withdrawn from Wuhan area they anticipate a reorientation in Japanese campaign plans. The Japanese are not expected to repeat the Nanking error of concentrating their major effort upon the occupation of the capital and then with its seizure relax their military operations, thus giving the Chinese an opportunity to rally. It is suggested that the drive on Wuhan is now secondary to the campaign directed at the Chinese forces evading the envelopment of this center. The offensive on Sien-ning is expected to turn southward on the Canton–Hankow Railway, that in the Sinyang sector to proceed northward and westward.
(3) It is recognized, however, that, because the Japanese have identified the capture of Wuhan with the destruction of Chiang Kai Shek’s military power, they may thereby be deflected from a determined pursuit of the retreating Chinese.
(4) Six hundred Kuomintang Youth Corps members trained to organize guerrillas have recently been sent behind the Japanese lines in the Yangtze Valley. Central Government authorities behind the Japanese lines are also training local youth for such work. Communist organizers are now active in every Japanese occupied province. [Page 331] The Eighth Route Army has sent 60 of these young men to work in South Manchuria. However, the military effectiveness of partisan activities as now conducted is over-emphasized by most foreign observers.
(5) A Central Government division has been ordered to a locality north of Hopei, Anhwei; another is leaving the area east of Nanchang for northeastern Kiangsi.
Repeated to Chungking, Peiping. Peiping please mail code text to Mukden for information.