BRITISH AND U.S. WARSHIPS QUIT SHANGHAI: NATIONALS' FOREBODING

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 22931, 27 April 1949, Page 7

BRITISH AND U.S. WARSHIPS QUIT SHANGHAI: NATIONALS' FOREBODING

(1 p.m.) SHANGHAI, April 26. British and American warships today moved from their usual moorings in Whangpoo to Woosung, at the mouth of the Yangtse about 10 miles from Shanghai,

The ships which moved were’ the British cruiser London, the destroyer Constance, the American cruiser El Dorado, flagship of Vice-Admiral Oscar Badger, commander of the United States West Pacifiv Fleet, and the transport Chilton, a floating base for 600 United States Marines.

The British sloop Black Swan at present holds a lone watch in Shanghai’s “battleship row,’’ directly opposite the teeming Bund. A British Navy announcement indicated that British vessels will remain at their present berths to render any possible assistance to Commonwealth nationals during the change-over-period. Plans for the final evacuation of United States citizens in American warships were abandoned on the strength of reports of a new Communist offensive to cut Shanghai off from the sea. Americans, who have been packing their bags in preparation for leaving, in the warships watched from windows along the waterfront with a sense of foreboding as the ships steamed past. Many of the Americans chartered small private boats and set off in pursuit of the fleet.

The Australian Government is sending an occasional table made of Australian timbers to the Franklin D. Roosevelt Warm Springs Memorial Commission. A map of Australia is set in the top with each State picked out in one of its characteristic timbers,