BOMBING OF SHANGHAI

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23334, 28 October 1937, Page 21

BOMBING OF SHANGHAI

WANTON DESTRUCTION NARRATIVE OF EYE-WITNESS FEARS OF FOOD SHORTAGE " It was cruel, cruel intentional destruction of poor helpless people—l cannot restrain my bitterness," writes Miss Eleanor M. Hinder, an Australian-born woman, holding an important official position in the municipality of Shanghai, in a letter she has sent to the Young Women's Christian Association of New Zealand. She describes how hundreds of Chinese refugees families, waiting anxiously for trains that might take them away from the theatre of war and destruction, were bombed and killed by Japanese from the air. "It was perhaps the most dastardly of all happenings," Miss Hinder writes. " Suddenly I heard explosions and saw the black pall rise in three places which I rightly judged to be the South Railway Station. You will see what was involved in this thing—the senseless sacrifice of hundreds of lives of poor refugees, who had waited for days to get a train, hoping one might go which would take them out of the war zone. I think I shall never forgive this crime against humanity. "There was no reason for the bombing of this station. The breaking of the bridges would have put the railway out of action just as effectively. JaDan promised she would give a warning, but she did not. " Death stalks abroad in Shanghai. It is impossible for people to keep off the streets. The crowding is unbelievable. It all adds to the strain and will not materially lessen. Truck-loads of refugees are being brought in continually from the stricken areas. There is great oppression in these so great numbers, quite apart from the dangers of war itself." SHORTAGE OF RICE Miss Hinder is a woman holding highly responsible positions in Shanghai. She was on the fuel and food committee in Shanghai in the previous crisis in 1932, and was appointed to a similar committee when the war began this year. She has also been appointed to represent China at the International Labour Conference, to be held in Geneva next June. In her letter she gives a detailed description of the plight of the great city of Shanghai, where the gravest food shortage threatens the teeming millions. " This war, which is not a war, has been waged by Japan largely by the navy and air force," she writes, " though there have been, of course, many sanguinary encounters on land. Right from the mouth of the Whangpoo River at Woosung up to Shanghai there has been a string of warships, decks cleared for action, whose large-calibre guns have the Chinese positions on both the Shanghai side and the Pootung side of the river. China has, of course, no heavy artillery to match the might of naval guns, and in this sense the fight in this area has been a very unequal one. China has faster aeroplanes than Japan. "It was early apparent that some steps would have to be taken to safeguard the rice supply for the international settlement itself. Rice is accustomed to reach the settlement from the interior of China by junks coming down the Soochow creek; but the news of the outbreak of hostilities caused the boats further off to retrace their steps and only those almost into Shanghai would, it was known from past experience, take the risk of coming in. "Thereafter the source of supply from the interior would be cut off. Though both the French concession and the Chinese areas in Shanghai have large warehouses in which rice is stored, the settlement has no granaries, and in consequence it was comparatively much less well off than the other areas. The only considerable rice stocks of which we could learn in the settlement were in the area then occupied by Japanese, and the prospects of getting this into currency were then, and still are, quite uncertain. In consequence the food committee early recommended to the council that it would be necessary to import rice from Saigon. This step was taken. Three cargoes amounting in all to 7000 tons have been ordered. WATER SUPPLY THREATENED " This committee's work is typical of that which other emergency committees have been doing, making plans to safeguard the city's water and electricity supply should either the power plant or the waterworks •or the mains be put obt of action by the bombing or shelling which has been daily occurring; consideration of the possibilities of the use of gas, and the laying-in of stocks of antidotes to the most commonly used types of gas; watching the financial situation, most precarious in the first few days when banks closed and no cheques would be accepted, all shops demanding cash, and cash was unobtainable; planning to bring in coal for the power plant, which had greatly reduced its load; but which was already drawing on reserves; and a thousand and one other things which an emergency of this kind places on the city. FEELING THE STRAIN

"Now, after two weeks, we are beginning to fee] the pinch; fresh fruit has given out and there will be no more coming in. All ships have ceased to call at the mouth of the river even —12 miles from Shanghai—for here there is a large concentration of Japanese warvessels actively engaged, and the risk to shipping is great. "You will have read that the British and American Governments took the lead in advising with the urgency almost of command all British and American women and children to leave Shanghai. Other nationalities followed, and during the last two weeks a total of some 6000 Westerners and 12,000 Japanese have gone. "The latest announcement that Jaoan will institute a "peace-time blockade" of China's coastal shipping virtually cuts this city off from supplies Japan may even try to stop foreign shipping, though she has not yet announced this policy. The Yangtze is barred to shipping by a boom across the river, preventing any shins passing. Japan can only attack Nanking therefore by land But we are in for a long struggle " There is one grain of comfort. The municipal council did not make the mistake it did in 1932 of declaring a state of emergency, which would have given Japan, as one of the Powers here, the right to defend the northern sector. Instead, the help of the Powers other than Japan was indenendently sought and obtained. The settlement north and east was virtually given over to fighting, but in the responsibility for this fighting, for using this part of the settlement as a base of military operations, the council has no part. At least we learned this lesson from 1931"