Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1940-10-14
Hundreds Of Trucks
Waiting Loaded for
Burma Road Dash
Congestion Is Tremendous
At Loshio, Terminus Of
Highway Into China
BY A. T. STEELE,
Chicago Daily News Foreign Correspondent.

Chicago Daily News Foreign Correspondent.
RUNNING, Yunnan, Oct. A
Hundreds of trucks, fully loaded
with munitions and gasoline, are
standing ready in Northern Burma
for the dash across the Chinese
frontier when the British reopen
the Burma arms route next
Friday.
Travellers from Lashio, Burma S
railway terminus, where the Chi
nese lifeline begins, tell of ire
mendous congestion at that end of
the highway. Every warehouse in
Lashio is bursting with materials
destined for China. Great quanti-
ties of munitions and other essential
commodities are stacked in the fields
around the town.
At Rangoon, Burmas port of en-
try, the docks are also piled high
with China-bound goods. Much Of
this stuff is of American origin, re-
routed through Burma because of
the Japanese closure of the Indo-
China supply line.
Russia-chief supplier of arms to
China-Will also be benefited by the
lifting of the Burma barriers. The
Soviets have always found it cheaper
and easier to send materials to
China by ship to Burma than over
the difficult trans-Asian caravan
route.
Here, at the highway terminus,
satisfaction over the roads reopen
ing is tempered by the fear that the
Infatuated japanese, operating from
their new, closer bases in French
Indo-China, will institute an aerial
reign of terror slong the roads
length and, perhaps, give Running
the same bloody treatment accorded
Chungking, wartime capital of Gen.
eralissimo Chang Kai-shek's gov
eminent.
There is strong possibility, too,
of intensified japanese pressure
against British possessions in the
Far East.
The Japanese invasion of Indo-
China has wholly severed the Indo-
China supply route, except for lively
smuggling across the border Cut
ting of the French railway has
transformed the political picture Of
Southwest China-once regarded as
a zone of French influence Today
French influence is dead and Brit
ish and American imports are re-
placing French. English instead of
French is now the second language
Two years ago many scoffed at
the new Burma highway as useless
and impractical. To-day China's
lifeblood pours through it. Thus
far fewer than 1900 trucks have
been operating over the 720-mile
road from Lashio to Running. but
with the closure of other routes the
Chinese hope to double or treble
this figure. and eventually approach
an estimated capacity of about 90
900 tons monthly
Non-War Goods Got Through.
The Burma roads immediate ca
pacity- is only a fraction of that
of the severed Indo-China supply
lines, but it is anticipated that it
can be sufficiently developed, at least
to provide China's most urgent
needs and to keep the war going
that is, if the japanese do not sue
coed in blocking it. -
While for the past three months
the British banned the passage of
gasoline and arms through Burma,
considerable amounts of other vital
materials move in and out despite
Japanese objections. Contrary to
expectations. the big rains caused
only negligible interruption of five
days. so it was possible during the
CLOSED period to import into China
hundreds of truckloads of badly
needed cotton yarns, merchandise,
kerosene and special steels. Trucks
returned to Burma loaded with tung
Oil, tungsten and tin in partial re-
payment of American credits.
Although the majority of the
trucks plying the Burma road are
owned by the Chinese government,
the high freight rates-ranging be-
tween $50 and 200 American dollars
a ton-have brought many private
operators rushing into the field.
Fortunes are being made on the
road to Mandalay in ways Kipling
never thought of.
(Copyright, 1910 Chicago Daily News Incl