AIR RAIDS ON CANTON

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 7 June 1938, Page 7

AIR RAIDS ON CANTON

MOST INTENSE YET NUMEROUS BUILDINGS DESTROYED ROADS STREWN WITH CORPSES l U.P.A.-By Electric Telegraph-Copyright! (Received 7th June. 9.0 a.m.) CANTON, 6th June. For the eighth successive day, air raid sirens screamed a warning at 8.10 a.m. Twenty minutes later Japanese planes flew overhead. A second raid two hours later was the most intense yet and lasted 40 minutes. Forty to 50 aeroplanes participated and the thunder of bombing was continuous and deafening, drowning even the roar of the machines as they power-dived towards their objectives, which included the Pearl River bridge, Government offices, railway stations, the Sun Yat-scn University and the fashionable residential area near Central Park. Observers in Shameen, the foreign quarter, counted 42 explosions of highpowered bombs before losing count. It is believed that a total of 100 bombs was dropped. One registered a direct hit on a French-owned hospital, blowing out the side. The explosion injured Commander Talec, a French military surgeon, killed two Chinese occupants and injured several others. Numerous buildings in the neighbourhood were reduced to debris and the roads strewn with corpses. The British Consul, Mr A. P. Blunt, telephoned a protest to the Japanese Consul-General at Hong Kong against the raiders diving over Shameen. The French and American Consuls are contemplating a similar protest. A message from Tokio says the Admiralty spokesman, referring to the British protests, denies that the raiders flow over Shameen. On the contrary they experienced difficulty in bombing the railway station because they conscientiously avoided flying over the foreign quarter. He hoped the British Consul had persuaded the Chinese to withdraw their military establishments as the best guarantee of the safety of non-combatants.