MISSION ROBBED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27357, 5 April 1950, Page 8

MISSION ROBBED

Armed Bandits In China

The story of patients, nurses, doctors and missionaries at the New Zealand Presbyterian Mission at Kong Choen being attacked and robbed by armed bandits about four weeks ago, was related to members of the Presbytery of Dunedin yesterday by Dr G. H. McNeur. He had received reports of the incidents by letter from missionaries in China. Dr McNeur told how 30 armed bandits swooped on the compound of the mission and ransacked the rooms of the Chinese doctors and nurses after robbing ' the patients. The bandits forced the Chinese nurses to direct them to the rooms occupied by the women missionaries, and these were also robbed. Miss E. M. Reid, one of the women missionaries, was threatened by the bandits and told to guide them to the hospital safe. They averred that the missionaries, being of Nationalist sympathies, had hidden a bomb in the safe, and were going to use it to blow up a nearby railway bridge,. Miss Reid led the bandits over the building, calling all the time for the hospital steward who did not appear. While Miss Reid delayed the bandits, a watchman summoned some Communist troops. When the soldiers arrived, the bandits took flight and left much of the stolen property scattered about the mission compound. The Communist authorities later sent a platoon of soldiers to live on the compound in case of further attack.