JAP. GAS EQUIPMENT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 304, 23 December 1943, Page 5

JAP. GAS EQUIPMENT

Exhibits For Allied Military Observers In China PROOF OF ACCUSATIONS Rec. 11 a.m. CHUNGKING, Dec. 22. At Chinese Army headquarters in northern Hunan Chinese officers produced for visiting British, American and Russian military observers equipment, which had been captured from the Japanese as proof of their statements that the Japanese used gas during the recent fighting in the "rice bowl" area. The equipment consisted of a number of canisters and shells which, it was stated, the Japanese used for tear gas, sneezing gas and suffocating gas. Lieutenant-General Liang Han Ming said that the most violent gas the Japanese used in the Hunan theatre was a suffocating gas. which incapacitated its victims for an hour or more, but no fatalities were reported. Exhibits included a 2ft mustard gas cylinder, whjph was dropped from the air at Yima River last May. It was not claimed that the Japanese used mustard gas in Hunan, but it was asserted that they used it on other fronts. A Japanese air raid on an American air base in western Hunan is reported from Chungking, quoted by British Official Wireless. Medium bombers, escorted by 20 Zeros, made the raid. Six Japanese bombers and three fighters were shot down. Two bombers and five Zeros were probably shot clown and five bombers and one Zero were damaged. One Warhawk was shot down, but the pilot is safe.