Russian Drive Threatens Million And Half Japs

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LONDON, Aug. 13 Tokyo reported that the vast new Soviet offensive in Manchuria threatened to cut off possibly a half million Jap troops in China and to split an estimated million and half enemy forces on the Asiatic mainland into two massive pockets. There was no immediate Soviet confirmation of the Tokyo report which originated at the command headquarters of the Jap Kwantung army in Manchuria. The Soviet communique, fourth of the Soviet-Jap war told of Soviet gains of nine to twenty-two miles toward the central Manchurian arsenal city of Harbin. The Soviet bulletin also announced that Russian Marines were invading Korea under the guns of the Soviet Pacific fleet, and had seized the vital ports of Rashin and Yuki in the Sea of Japan. After Admiral Ivan Yumashevs ship bombarded the bases Red Army planes cascaded tons of explosives on the wharves and harbors in a three-day aerial pounding. Tokyo radio, heard by FCC, reported sea borne Soviet troops had begun landings on the southern part of the disputed island of Sakhalin. Tokyo previously had reported invasion of the territory known to the Japs as Karafuto. The Domei dispatch said landings were under way at Anbetsu and Esutoru, the latter about sixty miles south of the border on the west coast. Anbetsu is just across the Soviet Jap border. A Domei dispatch, recorded by FCC, said the Russians had also penetrated twenty miles into the Jap half of the island in their land invasion from the border and had reached the village of Keton Rashin, a great Jap naval base, just thirty-five miles from Russias naval anchorage at Poset, south of Vladivostok. It is the best enemy port in Korea. From Rashin and Yuki, ten miles farther to the northeast the Japs shipped a vast amount of war production from Manchurias industries to the homeland.

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