MILD TERMS ONLY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19455, 14 October 1937, Page 15

MILD TERMS ONLY

BRITISH REMONSTRANCE ATTACK BY JAP. PLANES ROUTE Ob' CARS ALTERED RUSSIANS AMONG CONVOY (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (Reed. Oct. 13, 2.30 p.m.) LONDON, Oct. 12. With reference to the attack made by Japanese planes with machineguns on three British motor cars en route from Nanking to Shanghai, when 16 miles from Shanghai, it is now understood that the cars, owing to a misunderstanding, followed a route different from that indicated to the Japanese. Accordingly, the British remonstrance is in mild terms.

The Japanese also declare that the British used two cars instead of three as notified, but according to Mr. Braham, a member of the Embassy party, his car was nearly a mile ahead of that in which the air attache, Mr. S. Murray, was travelling when six Japanese war planes swooped down from a height of 300 ft. The motorists hurriedly alighted and rushed into the fields bordering the road. The Japanese fired for six or seven minutes between Mr. Murray’s car and that in which Mr. Braham was travelling. Mr. Murray, seeing the planes menacingly overhead, left the car and showed that he was a foreigner, but the firing continued. Presumably the remainder of the convoy was delayed to pick up M. Shakov, a member of the Russian Embassy, and a woman secretary, whose car broke down.

The Japanese claim that they stopped firing when they saw Union Jacks waved. Japanese machinegunned the Russian car when if was going out to bring in M. Shakov.