WAR IN CHINA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23178, 26 October 1938, Page 15

WAR IN CHINA

DOCTOKS' EXPERIENCES I—NEW ZEALANDERS RETURN HORRORS OF AIR BOMBING [bt telegraph—OWN correspondent] WELLINGTON. Tuesday Weary of warfare and glad to bp home again, two young New Zealand doctors returned to Wellington to-day by the Wanganella after 10 months in tho war area of China. They are Dr. H. Tremewan, of Lower Hutt, and Dr. R. B. Grey, of Auckland. They said they had passed through many hazardous and terrifying experiences. They had witnessed aerial fights and air raids until their ears ached from the crash of tho bombs. They did not intend to go back.

The two doctors left New Zealand for China early this year under the auspices of the joint council of St. John and the Bed Cross Society. In China -they were working under the organisation of the International Bed Cross of Central China. They were relieved recently by two fresh arrivals in the war area sent from New Zealand.

The medical situation in the war zone, they said, was greatly improved since the Chinese had been better organised and had learned to care for casualties in the field to a greater extent than was at first the case. Oare oI Starving Refugees

A problem every bit as serious as that of caring for soldiers wounded at the front and civilians injured in air raids, said Dr. Grey, was that of civilian refugees. His work lay almost wholly in this field. The Red Cross cared not only for the injured but also for the starving and plague-stricken refugees. Among the homeless and destitute Chinese crowded into towns under appalling conditions cholera and dysentery were rife. Dr. Grey was stationed mostly at Lunghai and Dr. Tremewan at Hankow. The military significance of the fall of Canton, the latter explained, lay in the severing of the Chinese sea-route to South China. With the Japanese in command of the railways, the Chinese could obtain munitions by only two other routes. War Supplies from Russia

Now that they were cut off from Hongkong by sea, they would in future have to obtain the necessities of war by overland routes, either through Indo-China or from Russia. However, at the time of the doctors' departure from China the Chinese Army was sufficiently well supplied with provendor and ammunition, it was estimated, to be able to carry on for at least six months without drawing upon any external source.

Although hospitals were some distance behind the front line, bombing aeroplanes came over constantly. Several times Red Cross hospitals were bombed. They understood one at least •had been destroyed. . On one occasion 13 bombs fell in the grounds of the hospital where Dr. Grey was working. Thev were unmistakably aimed at the hospital. It was more by good fortune than any kindly intention on the part of the pilots that the buildings themselves escaped damage. Every windowpane in the buildings was shattered by the explosions. Intensive Air Raids

Tho constant iiir raids were reflected in the change in the habits of the people in the war areas. By day the citios were dead and deserted, as their inhabitants had gone to earth in places of refuge, mostly outside t':e towns. All business was conducted rt. and after dusk, when the danger of raids was least. Whenever an air raid warning sounded everyone left the town and made for open country as fast as they could. So shaken wero their nerves from the constant threat of attack from the air that not only the Chinese but foreigners also were panicky at the very sound of approaching aircraft. In the early stages of the war, before the Chinese civilian population had learned to scatter to escape raids, casualties wore many. Bombs falling in crowded streets caused widespread havoc. Shocking slaughter took place in tho small towns and villages in tho early raids. When the first Japanese aeroplanes bombed Chengehow they left at least 200 civilians dead in the streets. A thing which made the Chinese grimly determined to resist to the last was the reports received of the manner in which Chinese women were being treated in areas occupied by tho Japanese.