“FOUR DAYS’ HELL”

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 71, 17 December 1937, Page 11

“FOUR DAYS’ HELL”

Eye-Witness On Siege Of Nanking

SYSTEMATIC KILLING Mass Executions By The Japanese By Telegraph.—Press. Assn.—Copyright. (Received December 16, 9.10 p.m.) London, December 16. “ ‘Four days’ hell’ would be the most fitting way to describe the siege and capture of Nanking, which I have just seen,” says A. T. Steele, the special correspondent of the “Daily Mail,” now on board the United States gunboat Oahu. “The last thing we saw as we left the city was a band of 300 Chinese being executed near the waterfront where corpses are already piled kneedeep. After the collapse of the Chinese morale the Japanese could have occupied the city without firing a shot, but they chose instead systematic killing,” Steele says. The Domei news agency, Tokio, estimates that the Chinese killed at Nanking exceed 70,000. The army spokesman admits that the Chinese are still strongly resisting in the north-east part of Nanking, but claim to have consolidated their positions on the Yangtse-kiang from Shanghai to Wuhu, a distance of 250 miles. They also claim to have captured Pukow, Kiangpu, Yangchow, and Wulungshan fort, north-east of the Purple Mountain.

The Japanese commandei»-in-chief at Nanking has issued a proclamation urging residents of Nanking to return to their ancestral homes and pursue their avocations in complete peace.

The Tokio correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” reports that great flag parades celebrated the fall of Nanking. In them 150,000 children, including the two elder daughters of the Emperor, Princesses Shegeko, aged 12, and Zazoko, aged 8, participated. The parades continued throughout the night an'd day. JAPANESE FORCES Transports Bound For South China STRONG NAVAL ESCORT

Shanghai, December 15. Reports from Canton state that 12 Japanese transports laden with troops and with a strong naval escort are approaching Towshan, 150 miles southwest, of Hong-Kong.

Hong-Kong reports that many thousands of Japanese soldiers are encamped on island bases between Hainan and the Pearl Delta. The Peking correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that China’s old five-barred flag, for the first time since the Republic was declared in 1911, was ceremoniously hoisted by the new national Government. A former Prime Minister and eight former Ministers have been sworn in as members of the new provisional Republican antiCommunistic regime.

The American gunboat Oahu is on the way to Shanghai with H.M.S. Ladybird, bringing survivors and dead from Hohsien. They are preceded by Japanese minesweepers and are only travelling in the daytime.