Japanese Bombs Kill 200. Wound 400 • – —A A ▲ * 16 Planes Raid Native Quarter Fleeing Americans See Hot Battle; Chinese Shell Blast Near Augusta
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Japanese Bombs Kill 200. Wound 400 • - —A A ▲ *
16 Planes Raid Native Quarter Fleeing Americans See Hot Battle; Chinese Shell Blast Near Augusta
By Morris J. Harris
SHANGHAI. (/P) —Sixteen Japanese planes poured bombs into the narrow, densely-peopled streets of the Chinese Nan* tao quarter of Shanghai today to kill 200 helpless, screaming natives and wound 400 more. Apparently there was no mili* tary objective to account for the holocaust. It brought to nearly 6,000 the known casualties among th#
‘non-combatants of this great city in 15 days of awful warfare. Nobody knows how many; more have been killed or wounded and their fate never reported. One hundred and sixty Americans, fleeing up the Whangpoo by tender to the Dollar liner President Lincoln, saw a furious battle between Chinese land forces and Japanese planes. The result was a decisive Chines* victory. Two Japanese bombers, flaming, fell into the Whangpoo. U. S. LINER PEPPERED As on the other evacuation trips which have carried 2,000 American refugees to safety since the battle of Shanghai began, bits of shrapnel and stray bullets from both sides sprinkled the Lincoln’s super-struc-ture. No one was hurt, however. A Chinese shell exploded tonight near the United States cruiser Augusta, flagship of the Asiatic fleet, sending the crew in a dash for cover. No one was injured by the projectile, which was fired from a Chinese battery aiming at Japanese positions in the Hongkew section. The explosion came only a few hours after 17 sailors, injured when a shell struck the cruiser Aug. 20, returned to duty. One seaman was killed in the Aug. 20 shelling. Late today, in angry reprisal for the Nantao bombing at the very edge of the French concession, Chinese cannon shelled Japanese Honkew, which lies at the north of international Shanghai. Numerous casualties were reported as the shells burst near the Japanese police station and along Boone and Miller roads. MANY BURN TO DEATH Fires started in Nantao by the Japanese bombs burned many Chinese to death. They brought back to the heart of Shanghai the devastation of modern warfare, which had shifted away with the centering of the infantry-artillery battlefront at a point 12 miles northwest of Shanghai, about Woosung, where the great Yangtze river meets Shanghai’s waterway, the Whangpoo. There was not convincing guarantee of lessened hostilities here,
however, and American marines sped work of strengthening defense works about the international section over which they maintain guard. Thousands of sangbag barricades were thrown up to form a triple defense line, and machine guns and small armaments were in position for instant action to defend the settlement. British, French and other foreign guard detchments likewise continued to strengthen their fronths. Nanto is the native quarter of Shanghai’s southern fringe, adjacent to the French concession, in which most American residents of Shanghai live. About 2,500 American remain in Shanghai, 700 of them women and children. Most of the others were among the refugees leaving the past 10 days. PASS CLAIMED The bitter war to the far north continued—Japanese claimed at last that they had completed occupation of strategic Nankow Pass, the 12mile gateway to Inner Mongolia, after a 16-day battle. Reliable sources, however, said the victory cost about 1,500 Japanese lives. Sir Hugh Montgomery Knatch-bull-Hugessen, British ambassador to China who was wounded Thursday by a Japanese aerial machine gunner, was reported improved today but his condition still is very grave. In London, Britain ordered a strong protest and, it was reported, might suspend relations with Japan unless Nippon satisfied British demands for suitable settlement. During the bombing of Nantao, thousands of terrified Chinese pushed and crowded through the streets, endeavoring vainly to escape. Mayor O. K. Yui announced 200 persons were killed and 400 injured when 16 giant planes rained tons of explosives into the humanitypacked Nantao quarter. Besides the normal population of the Chinese business and residential section, thousands of natives had taken refuge there. The attackers, divided into squadrons of four ships each, swept over the sector several times, leaving a field of death and destruction a half-mile square when they had finished their grim maneuvers. Widespread fires quickly licked the debris spread by the bombs and many of those who escaped the hurtling projectiles were burned to death. Shrieks of the war-maddened Chinese populace rushing wildly in every direction mingled with the groans of the dying and the roar of the spreading flames. Nantao became a veritable inferno. The raid was another of Japan’s remorseless campaign to terrorize non-combatant areas. Chinese authorities said the airmen had no particular target but were only trying “to terrify and intimidate helpless citizens.”