JAPANESE BOMBERS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22820, 30 August 1937, Page 9

JAPANESE BOMBERS

SHANGHAI REFUGEES 600 DEAD : 1200 INJURED MANY WOMEN AND CHILDREN By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received August 29, 7.5 p.m.) LONDON, August 29 The Japanese conducted an air raid on the Nantao district of Shanghai, where refugees were congregated waiting for trains. The casualties were 600 killed and 1200 wounded. Japanese bombing aeroplanes concentrated on the Shanghai South railway station, the Kiangnan Arsenal and local administrative buildings on the outer fringes of Nantao. A panic wars caused among the inhabitants, thousands of whom stampeded toward the French concession, the locked gates of which were opened only for ambulances. The bombs started huge fires. The raiders also attacked Pootung, Chapei and other areas of Shanghai. Four bombs struck the Shanghai South Station, which was crowded with refugees waiting for trains. Their ranks had been swelled by panic-stricken fugitives from elsewhere. The bombs demolished the railway tracks and sheds and littered a-quarter of a square mile with the mangled bodies of dead and dying. The victims were largely women and children. Members of the ambulance service did their utmost amid the confusion. Rickshaws were used to rush the injured people to the hospitals, which already were overcrowded with Chinese soldiers. The Japanese warships are still shelling Nantao. British doctors attending the casualties appeal to the British Medical Association to use all possible political pressure to prevent the inhuman slaughter by Japanese bombers of women, children and babies. —» The Japanese naval spokesman said the South Station was bombed owing to the presence of Chinese soldiers. It would again be bombed if soldiers continued to assemble. The Chinese military spokesman asserts that there are no Chinese regulars at Nantao, but merely members of the Peace Preservation Corps. Chinese artillery shelled the Hongkew district, directing its fire at the main market and Japanese clubs and institutions. Several were killed and wounded.