CHAOS IN CHAPEI

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 32, 8 February 1932, Page 9

CHAOS IN CHAPEI

CORRESPONDENT'S VISIT

HAVOC AND RUIN

SHANGHAI, 6th February. A special correspondent of the Australian Press Association writes:— "STdrting the Settlement boundary to avoid the Japanese lives, escorted by an American-educated Chineso staff officer, to-day I walked into Chinese territory in the wake of the Japanese wave of destruction and traversed a terrible graveyard of desolation. "Everywhere I glanced there was nothing but acres of the blackened ruins of once-prosperous shopß and homes. The gaunt skeletons of charred buildings stare horribly from every angle. Smoking ruins clutter the roadways. Gaping shop-fronts and crumbling walls tell the story of the terrific bombardment and fire which has devastated an area of five square miles. "Chapei is a ghostland—a place of appalling destruction of a character not witnessed outside an earthquake zone. Untold millions are represented by that terrible junk-heap. | "The charred bodies of unrccognis-

able civilians and soldiers lie rotting and uiiburied in this no-man's land, beyond which the Chinciso soldiers arc replying to tuo Japanese- fire, firmly entrenched behind the rnins of the North Railway Station, which is still the objective of aeroplane attacks and a heavy Japanese bombardment." ' "Broken sandbag emplacements, cunningly hidden round corners, indicate the opposition encountered when the Japanese entered Chapei at midnight a week ago.

_ I plodded through this sea of desolation to the Chinese lines, where the advance forces of the Cantonese 19th Eoute Army are stubbornly resisting the efforts to capture Chapei, "There is no panic among these soldiers. Their morale is high. There is unmistakable discipline among these German-trained Chinese.

"It is not their first time under fire, as they have been engaged previously against other Chinese armies, also bandits and Communists. Some are veterans of the 1927 campaign. "A staff car carried me along the new Chun-shan road toward Chengju, where the Coinniander-in-Chief, General Tsai Ting-kai's, headquarters are located in a villa formerly occupied by a wealthy family. ' GENERAL SPEAKS. "A tall and slender figure appeared on. the_ verandah, and General Tsai Ting-kai was introduced. We entered the reception room of a floor covered with, sandbags, below which is a cellar, where the staff takes refuge when aeroplane bombing begins. "General Tsai looks more like a scholar than the commander of an army of 45,000. Questioned, he saidr "I am fighting for the defence of Shanghai against Japanese aggression, and China is behind me. I shall fight until there is not a single man in my army left, but please tell the world that mine ia not an offensive war. I am only on the defensive."

He declared that his soldiers were accustomed to fighting, and were not afraid of the Japanese, who were mere!ly drill-ground trained.

"The Japanese don't know the art »of real fighting," he said. "Moreover they are cowards."

These remarks were translated, as General Tsai cannot speak English. He saiid he favoured the Powers' proposals and welcomed the arrival of tho foreign tuoops, whose presence was for the purpose of defending Shanghai against th*3 Japanese.