FAR EAST

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 July 1938, Page 4

FAR EAST

CANTON BOMBED. [BY CABLE —PRESS ASSN. COPYRIGHT.] (Received July 18, 11.30 a.m.) CANTON, July 17. Japanese war planes bombed the city for eighty minutes this morning’.' concentrating on Wongsha railway i station, which was again heavily damaged. The loss of life was small. NAMOA’S DEFENCE. HONG KONG, July 17. The Chinese frustrated a Japanese attempt, to recapture Nainoa Island. WARNING TO RUSSIA. TOKIO, July 10. The Domei Official News Agency says the Soviet troops at Posyeta Bay, in Siberia, are building defences dominating the Japanese port of Rashin, the terminus of the railway from the heart of Manchukuo. A Japanese Note has warned Russia of the possible complications of nonwithdrawal. REPLY TO U.S.A. PROTEST. WASHINGTON, July 16. In a reply to the United States protest to Tokio against the violation of American property and violation of the rights of American nationals, Japan has sent a Note to the State Department stating that its armed forces are unable to maintain order in Chinese cities and that Japan cannot guarantee police protection for the nationals of other countries, even in such large cities as Shanghai and Nanking. “Concerning the present conditions in the places in question, Japan is still continuing military operations in self-defence,” the Note added. This policy was gradually being relaxed to permit Americans to return as soon as possible. “ROBIN HYDE”’ ADVENTURES HARDSHIPS DESCRIBED. LONDON, July 15. The Hong Kong correspondent of “The Times” states that an amazing story of her terrifying experiences in China is related by Miss Iris Wilkinson (“Robin Hyde”), the New Zealand journalist, who still is in hospital suffering from nervous prostration. She said that the position in Hsnchow became acute on May 5, when the Japanese aeroplanes dropped 200 incendiary bombs on the city. Many buildings were set on fire and the hospitals overflowed with civilian casualties.

The Chinese, on May 14, informed her that the railway had been severed by the Japanese and that the only way to escape would be on foot. She then decided to trek northward to the coast. She started ill-equipped and suffering from an almost blinded eye caused by a crazed Chinese refugee striking her with an electric torch This injury is still evident. After a long, exciting trudge, she was given a lift part of the way by a Japanese lorry, an officer declaring that she would have been shot had she been a. Chinese.

After further foot-slogging she reacha Chinese outpost, where the commander provided her with a uniform and a donkey, on which she rode some distance, seeing occasional fighting. Eventually she reached the Tsinpu railway and decided to walk along the track to Tsingtao. A Japanese troop train overtook her and offered her a lift to Tsingtao, but when she got on board she found that the train was going to Hsuchow, which she reached again in mid-June. Undaunted, she decided, again to attempt to trudge. After two days she was overtaken along the railway by Japanese soldiers on a trolley, and they offered her a lift, but because of the unpleasantness of her companions she left the trolley at Lungchen, where she met a Japanese officer, who placed her on a troop train going to Tsingtao, which she reached after two days and two nights in the same compartment with 14 Japanese soldiers, sleeping on a mat. She was taken to the Japanese headquarters at Tsingtao, given hotel lodging for one day, and then handed over to the British authorities. Later she went to Hong Kong, where she is slowly recuperating.