DRIVE TO HANKOW AT STANDSTILL

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 278, 20 August 1938, Page 11

DRIVE TO HANKOW AT STANDSTILL

Japanese Accumulating Reinforcements

EFFORT TO ENSURE CITY’S CAPTURE By Telegraph.—Press Assn.— Copyright. LONDON, August 18.

The Shanghai correspondent of the “Daily telegraph” says, it appears that the Japanese drive toward Hankow has come to a standstill, except for minor operations in order to allow of the accumulation of sufficient reinforcements to ensure the capture of the city. Scores of transports are steaming up the river with supplies and men. An air battle near Hanyang is reported to have resulted in . the Chinese losing 32 planes. The Japanese claim that all their machines returned, but the .Chinese claim to have shot down six.

A Japanese attempt to laud at Lion Hill, near Kiukiang, is reported to have been repulsed. The British naval authorities issued a statement that a British rating at Tsingtao who mishandled a Japanese flag on August 17 and was immediately surrounded by Japanese soldiers wrote an apology which he handed to a Japanese rating. He was released, but other ratings who arrived but did not participate in the incident were taken into custody until the arrival of the British consul. The Japanese declared that the first rating tore down, trampled and spat on the flag. Japanese arrested two French soldiers in the Peking legation quarter, whence they had fled after a cabaret brawl. The soldiers were taken prisoner and placed in the Japanese compound. Requests for their release from tile French Embassy and from the governing body of the legation quarter were ignored. Japan has tendered an apology regarding the action of three Japanese officers who, disguised as soldiers, urged a crowd of Chinese to resist their “white oppressors.” The Chinese Superintendent of the International Settlement police in Shanghai was shot dead in a fusillade by unknown assassins.

BASEBALL PLAYERS TO WEAR GAS MASKS Tqkio, August 18. A grotesque baseball match in which the players wil Iwear gas masks will be held on August 20 between units of the Japanese Air Defence Corps as part of tests of anti-gas equipment.