READY TO FIGHT

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1937, Page 7

READY TO FIGHT

By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.

chinese army moyes ENCAMPED NEAR PEIPING PREPARATIONS FOR WAR DEFENCE Oi^ NORTH CHINA BOMBINGS BY JAPANESE t

Rec. 12.50 ajn. London, Aug. 4. The veteran 89th Chinese Division has , moved through the Nankou Pass and . \ encamped within 15 miles of the walls of Peiping, says a message from the special correspondent of the British United Press with the Chinese Governmeht army. The army is apparently determined to fight. Troops have arrived by train froin Tatungfu. They were repeatedly boxnbed by Japanese planes, which caused some damage; Japanese planes agaln bombed Paotingfu, Kaigan and other places in the Hopei province. The Japanese occupied Yang-liu-Ching, west of Tientsin, without resistance. The Chinese report th©t Japanese troops killed. hundreds of vi'llagers as a reprisal for alleged tampering with the Peiping-Tientsin railway, Preparing for Defence, •rhe Thnes' Tokio correspondent says that according , to Japanese news all the norfchern provinces in China are preparing for defence. Rich Chinese are leaving Tsingtao for Shanghai. Japanese women and children have already been brought to Tsingtao en route to Japan. Air defences are being prepared at Taiyuan, where fche people are dispersing to, the hills. Major Nakagawa, spokesman for the Japanese War Qffice. told an all-party conference of the House of Representatives that 130 bodies of Japanese Koreans, including women and children, were recovered at Tungehow. All bore hideous tnarks of atrocities. Major Nakagawa added that 11 Japanese women taking refuge" in a hotel at Tungchow were all outraged. Pond Crimson With Blood. An escaped Japanese told the Tientsin correspondent of the Asahi that he found a pond inside the east gate crimson with the blood cf 60 Japanese Kqreans who had been killed and thrown into the pond. Twenty-nine others were found butchered in another pond nearby. Women and children were Included In each case. A War' Ofiice communique announces ithat the Japanese casualties sinee the etart of the conffict in North China are 330 killed and 837 wounded. Japan summarily rejected the Sovlet protest against the raid on the comulate at Tientsin and stated that the incldent occurred outslde the area controlled by the Japanese. Japan suggests that Russian Whltes were responsible for the raid, their object being to seize the archives, in which they were successful. The autonomous Government of East Hopei, established under Japanese auspices after the occupation of Jehol, has transferred its headquarters from Tungchow to Peiping.