CHINESE FREE LUNGHAI RAILWAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 124, 28 May 1938, Page 9

CHINESE FREE LUNGHAI RAILWAY.

PURSUIT OF JAPS. Authorities Searching for Auckland Writer. NIPPON NAVY MUSTERING. United Press Association.—Copyright. (Received 12.30 p.m.) LONDON, May 27. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has informed the Chinese Embassy in London that Langfeng is recaptured with the infliction of heavy casualties on the Japanese. This frees the Lunghai railway between Kaifeng and Kweiteh. Japanese remnants are being pursued fcy the Chinese, who are also Rurrounding and attacking Japanese reinforcements at Kwantai.

Japanese authorities, says a Shanghai message, are searching for the Auckland journalist. Miss Iris Wilkinson (Robin Hyde), who departed on donkey-back from Hsuchow to the north-eastern front, which is now overrun by Japanese troops retreating from Langfeng. She may possibly have taken refuge with missionaries who are determined to remain at Hsuchow to safeguard Chinese refugees. Chinese sources report that 27 Japanese warships are lying off Chungshan, »n the Kwangtung coast, also many armed trawlers and other small craft capable of landing troops. The Chinese are feverishly preparing to resist the expected invasion. The opinion is held that an attack on Canton itself is impending. Martial law has been declared at Chungshan and all non-combatants have been ordered to quit. A later cable *from Tokyo states that <he War Office has recalled Lieut.-General Kideki Tojo, Chief of Staff at Kwantung.

Miss Wilkinson, better known to the public as "Robin Hyde," author of '"Passport To Hell," "Journalese" and ''Wednesday's Children," and the writer of many articles ana poems, had booked her passage to England via China, Japan, Kussia and Poland. In what is believed to be the latest communication from her to Auckland friends, she stated that affairs in China interested her very much, and •he intended to remain there some time collecting material for articles for English papers and for a book she was planning to write. The letter, which is dated March 8, was received about a fortnight ago. "SINCERE REGRETS." Jap. Maltreatment of British Bird-lover. CORRECTIVE STEPS PROMISE. (Received 10.30 a.m.) SHANGHAI, May 27. Japan has expressed sincere regrets for the maltreatment of Mr. E. G. Wilkinson, the British bird-lover, who was •aptured and injured by Japanese soldiers after climbing a barbed wire fence in the Japanese sector to observe some nesting birds, on May 14, and promised corrective steps. CHOLERA OUTBREAK. Eight Cases Confirmed In Shanghai. i 7APANESE FEAR FOR TROOPS. (Received 10 a.m.) SHANGHAI, May 27. Eight of 18 suspected Chinese cases have been confirmed as cholera. The outbreak is declared to be epidemic and an extension is feared owing to hundreds of thousands of refugees living under insanitary conditions. Cholera has also broken out at Pootung, whither Japanese have dispatched a medical corps in the hope of preventing the spread to their own forces. Shanghai clinics have inoculated 70,000.