CHINA. June-July 1938. Near Zhengzhou. As the Japanese advanced on Zhengzhou--the crossroads of the two major railway lines of northern and eastern China, and the gateway to the Hankow region-- Chiang Kai-shek ordered the dikes of the Yellow River blown up. The flood, which halted the Japanese only temporarily, inundated eleven cities and four thousand villages, destroyed the crops of four provinces, and rendered two million people homeless. In this photograph Chinese soldiers are being ferried across the river.