HORRORS OF WARFARE

Evening Star, Issue 22810, 19 November 1937, Page 11

HORRORS OF WARFARE

REV€ALIW FILM AT BT. JAMES ' Horrifying sequences depicting scenes of active warfare in China such as have never before been seed in Dunedin were privately screened this morning at the St. James. All the gruesome details of the results of the bombing and shelling of Peiping and. Shanghai were revealed —truly a revelation to civilian eyes. There were the scenes of chaos and slaughter in the main streets of Shanghai immediately after the fall of a bomb which had killed 50 persons—all non-combatants, blasted from life in a terrific explosion which shattered the facades and interior of buildings on both sides of the street. Then the pitiful sight of the removal of the bodies, which were thrown indiscriminately into a lorry and bundled hastily away. Less terrible, but still intensely moving, were the scenes of the evacuation of the American population. Crowded into, a tender, they were transported down the river to the awaiting steamer, running the gauntlet of cross machine gun ana snipers’ fire from both sides of the river and two armies. Nearby an American warship lay at anchor, also swept by bullets and in line of shellfire. Other ghastly sights were numerous, both in city and country, the result of wanton destruction and carnage. Land and water alike held a toll of dead and dying soldiers and civilians lying inert in ditches with rain pouring upon them, and a ghastly freight of death being borne down the river. There are to be seen civilians run-

ning aimlessly but madly through the streets of Shanghai from a menace they could not see. but which struck them down unmercifully in great numbers; then the grisly task of removal of the unfortunate victims. This film will be a shock to many; it will have some good effect if it drives home the lesson that modern war is all horror.