PERILS IN CHINA.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 47, 24 January 1939, Page 6

PERILS IN CHINA.

ADVENTURES UNDER FIRE.

AIASTERTON DOCTOR

WELLINGTON, Jan. 24. Seven perilous months in the Chines* war area were described by Dr T. A. Watson, of Alasterton, who returned to Wellington yesterday. He went to China as one of the medical men sent by the combined council of the Red Cross and St. John Ambulance organisations. and was stationed in a Baptist mission hospital at Chengchow. He saw cities and trains bombed, and even the hospital in which he was working, witnessed machine-gunning from the air, and finally on his way oi;t ran the gauntlet of rifle-fire on the Yellow River, and made his way at hazard of his life through country troubled by guerrilla warfare. The hospital at Chengchow was repeatedly bombed, outbuilding being destroyed, and two of the patients killed. Dr Watson said he did not know whether the bombs were aimed at tho hospital on all occasions; they might have been inaccurately dropped, but one day after a visit by Aladanie Cliiang" Kai-shek Japanese bombers came over, following their policy of always attacking vigorously wherever the Generalissimo was reported to have been.

Dr Watson thought that on the whole bombing did little damage to the civilian population. The first time a town was attacked from the air, casualties might bo heavy, as many as 150 being killed by a single bomb. But after that they did little hut annoy the population. When a town was being bombed regularly, the whole population went off into the country every morning at daybreak, and returned at evening. Machine-gunning from the air was a very much more deadly affair. ATTACKS ON TRAINS. Several times trains on which he was travelling were at tanked by bombers. When this hapjiened the train stopped and those on board swarmed out and scattered about the countryside till it was safe to proceed. The Japanese made a point of bombing trains wherever possible. When the time came for Dr Watson’s departure he had to cross the Yellow River in an open sampan with two Chinese refugees, a man and a woman. The river was in flood. As they went, troops on the shore opened fire on them with rifles, and the bullets came smacking into their small boat. However, they escaped with their lives. The country which he then had to traverse was troubled by guerrilla warfare. He held a pass signed by the Chinese commander, but fortunately bis landing was not observed, and he was able to reach the railway line. Here he had difficulty in securing a pass, but eventually managed it. It took three days, instead of 18 hours, to reach Tientsin, as hostilities prevented night travel, and they had to sleep in. wayside villages. The country was occupied by the Japanese, and nightly when they stopped to sleep the Japanese troops searched their baggage.

After leaving China Dr Watson came home by way of Japan, where he saw little indication of war. The average Japanese did not appear interested in what was happening in China. He was not very cordially received, hut noticed that one had only to say one was a German to be made welcome.