Shanghai AND THE Yangtze Delta were brought into the orbit of hostilities when on August 9 a Japanese officer and a seaman acting as his chauffeur were killed when driving a car in the vicinity of the Chinese military airport at Hungjao, on the western outskirts of Shanghai.

The story of the war in the Yangtze region is one of heroic failure on the part of the Chinese troops in their attempt to dislodge the Japanese from their positions in the International Settlement in August, and an even more heroic resistance to the increasing Japanese pressure of men and metal from ships, land and air until, after a series of repeated withdrawals, the Chinese Army found itself out-flanked again and again and so was forced finally to retire from Shanghai on November 14.

After having occupied the main cities and lines of communication embracing the Shanghai-Soochow-Hangchow area, Japanese troops succeeded, as has already been related, in breaching the walls of the national capital itself on December 13.

The subjoined accounts tell of the death and destruction left in the wake of the Japanese Army's swift advance through what is normally one of Chinas most peaceful and most densely populated districts.

According to a careful estimate made by a foreign observer who had visited these regions on several occasions, both before and after the Japanese occupation, at least 300,000 Chinese civilians have lost their lives as a result of the Sino-Japanese hostilities in the Yangtze Delta. A considerable proportion of these people were slaughtered in cold blood. This observer spoke of old men and young boys having been forced by the Japanese soldiers to carry burdens far beyond their strength and, when they fell down from sheer exhaustion, having been bayoneted and flung into a ditch by the roadside. Nor were the dead spared from ill-treatment. At many points along the line of march, he stated, Chinese graves were opened up and the coffins burned. It was the considered opinion of this observer that in its advance upon Nanking the Japanese Army had adopted a policy of deliberate terrorism.

The following graphic account was telegraphed to London by a British correspondent who visited Sungkiang, a walled city thirty miles south of Shanghai, on January 14:

Sungkiang, which was the original headquarters of General Gordon's "Ever Victorious Army," and a thriving city on the Shanghai-Hangchow Railway, presented a scene of indescribable desolation and destruction. Acres of houses have been laid waste as a result of aerial bombing, and there is hardly a building standing which has not been gutted by fire. Smouldering ruins and deserted streets presented an eerie spectacle, the only living creatures being dogs unnaturally fattened by feasting on corpses. In the whole of Sung-kiang, which should contain a densely packed population of approximately 100,000, I saw only five Chinese, who were old men, hiding in a French Mission compound in tears. They were short of food and begged to be taken back to Shanghai.

The condition of Sungkiang is typical of the state of affairs throughout this densely populated delta between Shanghai and Nanking, and testifies to what may have been one of the greatest mass migrations of population in history. No one is able to answer the question of what has happened to the hundreds of thousands, or rather millions, of Chinese who have literally disappeared from this area. The whole thirty-mile route between Shanghai and Sung-kiang is like a desert, with rice crops ungathered and left rotting in the fields as far as I could see. The traveller passes a continuous vista of blackened ruins and burnt-out farms guarded over by gruesomely fattened dogs.

Considerable bodies of Japanese troops returning to Shanghai were passed on the road. They represented a strange appearance, being loaded up with piles of loot from the countryside. In many cases rickshas containing trunks and suitcases were hitched behind cavalry horses and Japanese soldiers were riding donkeys, cows, and even buffaloes, collected from the countryside. Live pigs were tied to artillery limbers, and chickens were carried which had been taken from farms miles from the route that had been visited by foraging parties. At one point on the road was a huge concentration of Japanese supply wagons, and several batteries of field artillery. My attention was caught by thousands of cases of Japanese beer which had been consumed by the Japanese troops.

Soochow, known as the "Venice of China” is a picturesque city on the Shanghai-Nanking railway line fifty miles west of Shanghai, with which it is also connected by several new motor roads. It is known to thousands of tourists who make only brief visits to China. Its normal population is about 350,000. Following the retreat of the Chinese troops from the Shanghai area, the city fell, practically undefended, to Japanese forces on November 19, 1937.

The following account of events in Soochow, written by an American, appeared in a supplement of the China Weekly Review, Shanghai, March 19, 1938, entitled "Destruction in China”

(The writer, a resident of China for more than thirty years and whose name, for obvious reasons, is withheld, reports the following eye-witness account of terrorism and atrocities by the Japanese army.)

It was our helplessness, the impotency of 350,000 human beings--the aged, young and feeble of the beautiful, tradition-steeped city of Soochow--in the path of Barbarians at War which struck us with nauseating force that day in the second week of November when Japanese bombers first began releasing high explosives upon the city proper.

It was a frightening thing to see; a horrible, maddening thing under which to dwell--tons of explosives hurtling down from the skies, exploding in a cascade of bits of human flesh, dirt, stone and mortar. Both night and day death rained upon the city from the circling, droning Japanese planes.

At the early stages of the bombings, the majority of the fear-crazed residents of Soochow sought sanctuary in dugouts. Finally, air raids' became so incessant that we debated whether to remain in the dugouts or return to our work and take our chances on missing death. We decided on work.

On November 9, handbills were dropped from planes, warning Soochow that, after three days had elapsed, the entire city would be even more intensively bombed. Could that be possible? We were already living in a veritable inferno. This warning: that the grand old city of Soochow would be practically destroyed, brought before me a tragedy too realistically terrible to put into words. I cannot pass on to you the feelings that came over me as I saw hundreds of thousands of men, women and children leaving their homes, carrying with them their pitifully small belongings.

By this time, however, boats, rickshas and other vehicles could not be obtained at any price, and most of the refugees had to flee by foot. My companions and I had previously secured two boats from Chinese soldiers, and it fell to my lot on the night of November 12 to tow these boats by motor launch to Kwangfu with our first contingent of refugees. I immediately returned to Soochow for another load where Chinese soldiers commandeered the two boats, but left me the motor launch. I turned the launch over to my companion and he, with other friends, started off again for Kwangfu.

It was now too late to enter the city gate so, with a friend, I spent the night in a deserted hospital. It was the night of the big air raid. And only God and the people left in the doomed city of Soochow knew, or ever will know, the horrors of that night. The most dreadful nightmare could not compare with it. The entire city and its environs were lighted with flares dropped from planes. And then death started on its speedy flight from the skies. No human being could have counted the number of bombs released upon this defenseless city. One might as well have tried to count the drops of rain falling on a like number of square miles in twelve hours' time. My friend lay flat upon the floor. At times, I got under the bed. Strangely enough, I felt safer there.

At daybreak, we arose and went into the city. The death and destruction we witnessed defies all description. We felt nauseated, sick. The only cheering sight we saw was a Chinese pastor leading a thousand refugees towards Kwangfu. What a picture! Behind him trailed small children, old men and women, the lame and those disabled by bombs' and shells-I thought of the Good Shepherd leading His flock. In two days, five thousand refugees from Soochow had been removed to Kwangfu.

I, myself, left for Kwangfu and it was not until November 21 that I returned. My companion and I had to drive carefully to avoid running over bodies of the dead lining the roads and scattered over the fields. When we arrived, looting on the part of uniformed Japanese soldiers was proceeding in lively fashion. Mission property, as yet, had not been molested. From that time until December 11, we went into Soochow nearly every day. We saw that every bank and shop and every residence had been forced open. Japanese soldiers were passing in and out of them, like ants loaded down with bales of silk, eiderdown quilts, shop goods and household effects of every description.

On one of our trips, however, we found that mission property had been looted thoroughly. The front, back and side doors of one particular building had been forced open. The doors to the school buildings and residences had been smashed in, apparently with axes and butts of guns. All rooms had been entered and all trunks and boxes broken into. Such things for which they had no use were scattered in wanton confusion over the floors. In my home, the dishes had evidently been thrown upon the floor with great force. In my friend's home, we saw his son's violin on the floor, broken beyond repair.

During one of my visits to Soochow, I went into the Administration Building of Yates Academy. I came upon a group of soldiers before they were aware of my approach, catching them in the act of breaking open the school safe. One soldier was striking the safe door with a pick-axe. While a group was attempting to smash the safe, others were rifling desks in the offices of the principal and the dean. When I went to the end of the hall to call an interpreter, they left, taking their tools. In another hour's work, however, they would have had the safe open.

Leaving the compound, we heard music in the church. We entered and found a Japanese army officer playing the piano, while several of his soldiers were rifling desks in the conference room of the auditorium. I rebuked him for allowing his soldiers to loot the church. He saluted and left immediately.

The next morning we returned and found that the soldiers had finally forced open the safe and robbed it of approximately $400. Amusingly enough, however, is that the looters threw on the floor about $300 in pay envelopes, thinking they were useless letters. We found, too, that safes in several other mission compounds, as well as the strong boxes in banks and shops had been smashed and their contents carted away. The "fine discipline" of the Japanese army apparently was1 no more than a myth.

Actually, blame for wholesale looting in Soochow cannot be placed upon individual soldiers, but rather upon the Japanese army as a whole. More loot was taken than could have been carried away by individuals and, furthermore, we saw much of this loot being loaded on army trucks. One truck, loaded with expensive blackwood Chinese furniture, stood in front of the Japanese army headquarters.

The dead bodies we saw on the streets in Soochow on our first visit there after Japanese occupation, lay there for ten days or more. On our later trips to the city, we observed that the street dogs were noticeably fatter. Equally ghastly were the buildings, damages amounting to more than a million dollars.

All that I have recounted is terrible, but the worst remains to be told the violation of women of all classes:. None can possibly estimate the number of women ravaged by the lust-mad Japanese army. Personally, I know of enough cases to make me believe all the reports that I have heard. After all, what difference does it make in such wholesale assaults whether the number is 9,500 or 9,600? One morning in Kwangfu, I met a young student of Soochow University who told me, with tears in his eyes, of the attack upon his beautiful sister. Again, I saw great numbers of village men sitting by the roadside, trembling-a band of armed Japanese soldiers had driven them from their homes keeping behind their wives and daughters.

That night I was asked to stay at the home of a Chinese in order to help protect his daughters and other young girls who had come there for safety. It was well that I did, for that night at about eleven o'clock I was awakened by a flashlight shining through my door's transom. Someone whispered 'Japanese are here.' I secured my flashlight and rushed into the adjoining room. There I saw three Japanese soldiers flashing their lights into the faces of the ten or twelve young girls sleeping on the floor. My presence surprised them and, at the sound of my angry tones, the marauders hurried down the stairs. The Chinese father stood by my side during these very tense moments.

I have told this story, because I cannot live with it hidden in my heart. And, should anyone believe that the Japanese army is in this country to make life better and happier for the Chinese, then let him travel over the area between Shanghai and Nanking, a distance of some 200 miles, and witness the unbelievable desolation and destruction. This area, six months ago, was the most densely populated portion of the earth's surface, and the most prosperous section of China.

Today the traveller will see only cities bombed and pillaged; towns and villages reduced to shambles; farms desolated, and only an old man or woman here and there digging in the once "good earth." The livestock has been either killed or stolen, and every sort of destruction that a brutal army, equipped with all the modern implements of war, can inflict has been done here.

Countless numbers have been killed; others have been maimed for life; yet others are huddled in refugee camps, or hiding in mountain caves, afraid to return to their desolate farms, their empty shops and ruined businesses. Those who would dare return are not permitted to do so by the war-mad Japanese army.

It is shameful, indeed, in the face of all this, that the Japanese who control communication lines, are proclaiming to the world that they are inviting Chinese back to their ancestral homes to live in peace and plenty.

Wuhu with an approximate normal population of 140,000, is a thriving Yangtze River port 58 miles south-west of Nanking and about 263 miles south-west of Shanghai. For many years it hds been an important mission center. The town fell to the Japanese forces on December 10, 1937, three days before the fall of Nanking. The following extracts from the letters of a foreign missionary in Wuhu describe events during and following the occupation up to December 30, 1937:

Since the war has come to our Wuhu area you, no doubt, have been thinking of us as we have of you. I will send a brief statement of some of the things that have been happening here. A summary of events beginning December 5 will give you an idea of the conditions under which we are living during these days of crisis. On Sunday, the 5th, while we were in church service the hum of planes was heard overhead, which was coming to be a commonplace occurrence, when all at once there was a succession of terrific bomb blasts. The audience rose to their feet as one man. We suggested the windows be opened and that there was no cause for alarm. We then continued the service for about ten minutes when an even larger series of terrific blasts were heard. On going to the front of the building, we saw one of the Jardine boats in flames and great clouds of smoke rising from what seemed to be the railway district. After watching the planes for a few minutes until they seemed to be going away, I asked for the car to be brought to the gate, but found that our chauffeur could not be located, so I drove the car myself taking one of our staff with me. We were at the bund within half an hour after the planes left, and started sending wounded to the hospital. The casualties of this bombing were especially severe as the people were not prepared for it. Dead and dying were all around. I went onto the British gunboat and found considerable shrapnel had struck the ship and slightly wounded Commander Barlow. Their crew were busy pulling people out of the water, and the ship's doctor was already giving first aid to some of the cases. The British tugboat was going alongside the burning "Tuckwo" helping in the removal of those on the ship. The B. & S.1 ship "Tatung" had just come alongside their hulk preparatory to taking the hulk away. It was also struck but not set afire and immediately proceeded to the opposite bank of the river. During that afternoon and night we received one hundred at the hospital for treatment. More than eighty of them needed to be admitted and the staff performed thirty operations during Sunday afternoon and night, besides the treatments given in the admitting rooms.

The days since December 5 have been rather hectic and strenuous for us. We were bombed three days in succession, and all roads leading from the city were crowded from dawn to dark with the city's population seeking places of safety. Pathetic sights passed our gates. Families carrying what bedding they could for the enforced exile among the hills and fields, babies on parents backs or in baskets on the carrying poles, all with drawn anxious faces made up the procession....

The Japanese troops have occupied the city in increasing numbers since the 10, establishing artillery batteries at the railway bund and just below the B. & S. bund. They have been ruthless enough in their treatment of the few soldiers who had remained, not knowing of their arrival. Civilians who have not complied with their every demand have been treated in like manner. Any moving junks or sampans attempting to cross the river have been riddled by machine guns. One such boat with three occupants' drifted ashore below the hospital and they were brought in for treatment. One of the men had ten bullet wounds....

Every day of the past month has been full of exciting, difficult, and at times dangerous experiences, but so far not one of the more than 1,400 people on our hospital hill who entrusted themselves to our protection and care has been lost. Every day has been a challenge to our ingenuity, patience and loyalty to protect them against the soldiers who frequently demanded admission at the gates or climbed over the compound wall, and to provide shelter, food, sanitation, and control for this large number who are living in a place with housing facilities for only four hundred.

. During the first week of occupation, the ruthless treatment and slaughter of civilians and the wanton looting and destruction of the homes of the city far exceeded anything ever seen during my twenty years' experience in China. The Chinese soldiers did not enter or disturb any foreign property in Wuhu. However, the Japanese have entered and looted nearly every piece of foreign property in the city. The two or three places that have escaped were those where some of us Americans stayed by to keep them out.

Probably conditions in Wuhu have been less severe than in most places because there was little fighting here. The soldiers seemed to especially seek Chinese women for violation and the saving of these women became one of our major activities over a period of several days. I did not hesitate to go out into the city with one or both of our cars to pick up women wherever I learned they were in hiding. On some days I made as many as four trips bringing back carloads of younger women and girls. If our cars had never rendered any other service, they have been worth far more than their cost during these few weeks and I hope some way may be found to express special thanks to the friends in Albion and Ann Arbour, Michigan, who gave these cars to me. Without them, it would have been utterly impossible to have saved these women or to have brought in provisions to keep the institution going.

I have kept in constant touch with the Japanese military authorities and the Japanese Consul who recently arrived. They give strong assurances for the protection of American lives and property and I have been using all the strength of my influence to get them to control their soldiers in their violence against Chinese civilians. They assure me their soldiers are forbidden now to molest the Chinese or to force them to serve them, and most of the officers desire to prevent these offences. In spite of these promises, it is still not safe for any Chinese man and much less for a woman to go on the street. Two of our hospital servants whom I sent out two days ago on a trial trip were robbed and made to carry loads. I immediately sent a letter of protest to the commanding officer and received his apology with the return of the money, but those who are not protected in this American compound have absolutely no redress.

An American flag was torn down from our hospital junk on Dec. 13. I immediately went to the junk, fished the flag out of the river with a bamboo pole, and then took it, still wet, to the Japanese commanding officer. I also reported this incident and several others to our American authorities in Shanghai and since then have had representatives call to make apologies from the Japanese Navy, the Japanese Army, and the Consul. Since the bombing of the U.S.S. "Panay," they seem very anxious to make amends to Americans. Several of the wounded Americans and Chinese from the U.S.S. "Panay" were brought to this hospital for treatment.

Conditions have been such that it was not safe for our hospital men to go out and bury the dead that were accumulating in the hospital morgue. Our supply of lumber for making coffins also ran out. Finally, it was necessary to dig one large grave on the hospital compound in which we buried twenty bodies....

Hangchow, "the Lakeside City," which was reportedly visited by Marco Polo, is one of the beauty spots of China and has a normal population of about 800,000. It was occupied on December 24, 1937, at 8 a.m., by Japanese forces, the vanguards of which consisted of the Fujii unit. Hangchow was practically undefended. The account following consists of extracts from the letter of a foreigner who stayed in Hangchow throughout the occupation, the letter being in the form of a report to friends abroad:

Early in November there was a Japanese landing in Hangchow Bay which seems to have been practically unopposed and this resulted in all Chinese troops in the Shanghai district being left with no defenses to the south and a general retreat began which did not really stop till after Nanking was captured in December. Day by day we heard of this town and that being captured and it seemed to all that if the Japanese wished to capture Hangchow it was very likely that they could....

On Sunday, Dec. 19, rumors began to fly thick and fast—the Chinese army staging a very complete and successful retreat beyond the river engaged the Japanese forces in great strength, by wireless! and nobody knew where we were really until one day all the bridges on all the roads round Hangchow were blown up, the Governor and the Mayor departed and all officials. On Dec. 22 in the afternoon after due warning given our Big Bridge and our most efficient Electric Power Plant were blown up with a tremendous explosion, our waterworks machinery was dismantled or destroyed, during the night the Police left and we wakened on Dec. 23 to a deserted town in every way defenseless. Then alas, the dregs of the populace covered itself with infamy for a large number of the rice shops were badly looted, a number of schools were stripped of all their furniture and one could meet a stream of people for all the world like a stream of ants in the neighborhood of any of these schools and of the well equipped Chekiang Government University, with students' desks, chairs, stools, beautiful laboratory tables, anything made of wood, all intent on heaping up a store of fuel 'while there was time' and no authority to prevent them.

The city fathers had arranged a force of six hundred "specials," members of our little back street fire brigades, but they only looked on, helpless to stop the looting, and then on Dec. 24 the Japanese came!

Our planning to save Hangchow seemed to have been successful, except for the looting by the populace, for now we felt we would be in the hands of a modern equipped and disciplined army and, though occupied, all, we thought, would be well.

The Japanese evidently knew that there was no likelihood of resistance for on December 24 the troops just straggled in, in no sort of military order and with no sort of military precautions, and starting Dec. 24, they just strolled in, in twos and threes, rifles1 slung, on their backs with no scouting, no preparation, no nothing, till our streets were gradually filled with little bodies of Japanese infantry, very tired, wandering aimlessly about looking for food!

As soon as possible we got in touch with the first regimental Commander to arrive and told him we hoped to cooperate with him, etc. etc. The city fathers got orders about rice and food which were rendered more difficult to comply with after the looting of the day before which continued into the next morning. While we talked to him we heard of two people shot by the soldiers, one because, not understanding Japanese, nor the writing of a Japanese soldier, he turned away rather quickly, the other because he tried to run away--a Japanese soldier who spoke Chinese is reported to have said "This man tried to run away" and shot him!

However, we hoped these were isolated occurrences and we went to bed that night feeling that the long strain was over, that our determination to hold on to the Hosiptal work exposing our foreign women and our many Chinese girl nurses to all the possible perils of warfare had been justified and that now we only had to readjust ourselves to the Japanese regime and carry on in peace and safety. ... I was personally reminded of Christmas Eve 1926 in an old home in another part of China, when we were similarly "occupied" by 'the Northern Expeditionary Army,' and expected for ourselves and our children and the Christian community generally, a time of great trial. Then our anxiety was turned to peace when the Southern Commander turned out to be a Christian and we were freed from all fear, but now when we expected peace we were very sadly disappointed.

Our hopes were still high as Christmas morning dawned. We had our Hospital Holy Communion Service at 8 a.m., English Celebration for the A.P.C. patient and another Britisher at 9, there was a 7 o'clock celebration in the city church and we assembled for our regular 10 o'clock matins and celebration with quite a good congregation considering how almost everybody who could had fled.

But on my way home from Church I began to doubt, the street was full of straggling troops, not in any sort of order, mostly with rifles slung and not at all prepossessing in appearance (infantry after ten days or so on the march are like that!), and as I turned round into the main street for the Hospital I saw a fierce-looking fellow with his entrenching tool neatly going through the shutters of a little shop and taking the whole front down and at the other side of the road there were members evidently of the same ration party going from shop to shop right along the street and then stories began to run through the streets of looting and pillaging all over the town so thatour refuges, which some of us thought the day before might not after all be needed, began to fill up with frightened women and their numerous small children. Throughout the day, too, airplanes droned overhead continually and heavy artillery fire was kept up for hours as the Japanese harassed the Chinese on the other side of the river.

Then began for me a few days of very real "shepherding." It began on Dec. 26. We had been a little disturbed on Christmas night by heavy knocking at various parts of the Hospital-all round the compound there are old entrances that have gradually become disused and more or less blocked up-it was the 'less' in several of these that gave us pause and on the morning of Dec. 26 Dr. Sturton and I went on a tour of inspection all round to see what further strengthening was needed. When we were just about half-way round getting to the north-east corner of the Hospital we met several women who asked our help-we told them to go to the Wayland School some ten minutes' walk away where there was a Red Cross refuge. They said they wouldn't be taken in and as they continued in that strain I said I would go with them. Then began a calling and shouting to friends and relatives and children and requests to me to wait a while for this one and that and for one from another house till I was like the Pied Piper with women and children for my following as I led them through the streets, through a lot of halted Japanese soldiers to the Wayland gate outside which there was a crowd of about a hundred people clamoring to get in.

I got in touch with the Chinese in charge of the door and asked him to open for this group of about forty people I had gathered up and the others who were waiting. "I can't," he said, "we are all full up." "Nonsense," said I, "the women must get in-call Mr. Clayton, please." He was the American missionary in charge of this refuge. When he came along he said they had already about eight hundred inside but as they had planned to take a thousand he would let this group in--the Chinese helpers said if we were not careful men and all would rush in so I spoke to the people and told them the refuges were only for women and children and they would all be admitted "but you men must go out of the way to the other side of the street!" which they did very willingly and just about ninety women and children were admitted. That was my first "shepherding" but for a few days after that I made two or three trips each day to the various refuges taking along ten or twenty women and children full of terror at the things that had happened to them or that they had heard of and feared. Generally these little bands collected at the Hospital. From the morning of the 24th we had to have the outside gate locked and a foreigner in charge. The first couple of days I was on guard a good deal helped by Dr. Phyllis Haddow and Miss Garnett, but later Miss Garnett became 'Horatius' and for about a fortnight she kept the gate all day, deciding who could and who could not come into the Hospital. On the 26th when I was going to the front gate at about 9 o'clock in the morning I found a thick stream of people pouring into the Hospital for refuge. I had the gate shut at once and we gradually sorted them all out, some had to go straight out, men mostly, women we gathered into the out-patient preaching place near the front gate and then I led off those who wished to go to the refuges. We were a sorry sight; mostly poor women with several children in arms and toddling along holding their mothers' skirts1 and biggish girls with nondescript bundles of bedding, clothes, household utensils, etc. etc. Straggling along and being halted every few minutes to keep them together making our way slowly through streets with a large number of Japanese soldiers, not generally actively interfering in any way but putting terror into the hearts of these women as they just looked at them!

Each morning found more and more frightened women thronging to get into the refuges' and from one thousand inmates the two biggest ones rose through fifteen hundred and two thousand to over twenty-five hundred. What a sight they made inside! Camped out, for example in the Union Girls' School, the crush at the door, the gradual sorting out inside, the putting into places already crowded beyond possibility of lying down, more and even more little groups of mothers and their big daughters and all the little ones, till in a dormitory building of three stories, bedrooms, corridors, porches, verandahs, landings on the staircases were all crowded tight, and in a huge cement-floored gymnasium behind hundreds were packed in the space they took up as they sat--there they sat all day, there they were fed and there they slept--a sight to turn anybody against war and its sufferings and yet these were the fortunate ones! How they were fed, mostly one meal a day and that cooked with great difficulty! How they were kept in a reasonably sanitary condition only the devotion of the Chinese helpers and the adaptability and reasonableness of the patient Chinese women made possible, but there they were in such conditions, not for our originally planned four days1, but as I write it is the thirty-fifth day and it is not yet safe for the women to go to their homes.

We soon got settled into a routine life. Dr. Sturton was freed from all duties in hospital so that he was available for helping in every conceivable sort of outside duty with the Hospital car or ambulance. Here is the sort of thing he did: Dec. 27, 9 a.m. Report from the Roman Catholic Convent on the City Hill that Japanese soldiers are actually inside and frightening the women refugees. "Can the C.M.S. Hospital help?" Off goes Dr. Sturton, with a Japanese officer who was visiting the Hospital, in the ambulance and the soldiers are evicted, the Convent abandoned and the women taken by ambulance to the Roman Hospital a couple of miles away. 1 :45 p.m. same day. Phone from Roman Catholic Church: "Can C.M.S. Hospital do anything?" (We had a phone kept on when the city system was stopped, joining us as center to the R.C. Church, the College and our Branch Hospital at Sung Mok Dzang.) Dr. Sturton again with a Dr. Tanaka of the Japanese forces goes off at once, finds the Roman Bishop Deymien beaten in the face by a drunken soldier who was continuing to threaten the Bishop with his fixed bayonet till Dr. Tanaka drove him out; and so off in the ambulance for a load of wood to the other end of the city, hoping the Japanese ration parties will not "commandeer" it at sight, or for rice for one of the refuges, or for coal for the Hospital or to take the guards round to our six posts, etc., etc. Any of us at any time were sent off for that sort of job but especially Dr. Sturton, while Dr. Haddow got her very capable hands1 on the regular washing of the hospital, and Mrs. Curtis became extra busy with the many babies who came from the refuge camps to our maternity department to be born and Miss Garnett kept the gate, and as for the rest, the student nurses had all their regular lectures and the whole work of the Hospital, doctoring, nursing, etc. etc., wounded soldiers, civilians, babies1, went on day and night in its ordered course…

I mentioned "fire" a little while ago-anybody who knows the position of the Hospital right in the heart of the city with a fairly wide street on the south side and typical old-fashioned Chinese streets on the other three sides, and into the middle of our south side a block of old dilapidated Chinese houses running, and on our west, south and north sides in places rather miserable old lath and plaster buildings, and inside a large proportion of our buildings just made to burn up quickly, will realize how dreadful a thing fire seems to us. On Dec. 26 as I was finishing shaving I happened to look west and as it seemed between me and the Sturtons' house on the extreme west of the Hospital a huge column of black smoke was rising and as I looked it burst into flames and the hospital bell began to sound the fire alarm. I shouted to my companion, threw on an overcoat and ran out to find all the hospital workers rushing to the west of the hospital. As I got towards the front gate I saw the fire was outside the Hospital so I went into the street west and saw there was a good twenty-foot wall on the other side of the street and the fire was well inside that. Then back to mingle with the Hospital people beginning to remove patients from the Hospital block in the west, north of the Sturtons' house and to tell them it was not immediately necessary, then I got up to the third story of the foreign sisters' house a little more to the north and thence one could see the fire clearly and observe first that it was burning away from us and that we could not be in danger unless it moved through a couple of walls and came back twenty or thirty yards but second that if it did so the sisters' house would be in extreme danger as one can almost shake hands across the street west of them from some ramshackle back buildings of ours to some more wooden structures on the other side of the street-with a west wind and a fire there we would be in serious danger. However, that Sunday we were able to get back to breakfast in a short time but our 8 o'clock celebration had to be cut out!

From that time there have been many fierce fires in the city but that was the nearest to us though twice at least there were fires near enough to force us to go and see actually where they were and on yet another occasion the night staff nurse who is also due to call me if necessary called me to look at a fire that seemed to her too near to be pleasant. Miss Woods' household half a mile north of us was got up twice and out on to the lawn for that fire which was in her street. . . .

It was quite a treat to go to see Miss Woods (and it became routine on my part after a day or two), to visit her from (refugee) centers and Mr. Taylor's of which more anon, each morning at about nine o'clock. I became milkman for that community early on when the milkman dare not take his milk into the streets. You might meet me any day with four pint bottles divided between the side pockets of my overcoat and a half pint in my breast pocket-one of our blessings was that we have had fresh milk (in the Hospital!) on every day but one all through—and see the order and enjoyment of life there—a kindergarten school, a primary school, a middle school and a Bible School for women all running by timetable all the time--it was an oasis of order in a very disorderly world. Miss Woods got in touch with the soldiers billeted all round her centers and had no trouble but quite a deal of help from the men. On New Year's day outside a billet between the Church and Miss Woods' house I saw on the wall in chalk "Dear Mr. Bishop, A Happy New Year to you." There was a notice signed by me on the Church door—hence this greeting! This was quite a happy spot in the unhappy city, tho' even then from nearby Miss Woods and her helpers were continually rescuing women and girls from the prevalent danger. For since the occupation besides looting all over the city—I doubt if one shop or house anywhere was left unmolested and in addition in many places horses were stabled in shops and houses so that our beautiful Hang-chow soon became a filthy, battered, obscene place-there were reports from all directions of women being ill-treated. The frightened groups outside the refuges each day told their own tale and we have in hospital among other damaged women, two women with broken backs, one of them has both legs broken in addition, both injured as they jumped from upstairs windows to escape pursuing soldiers. The city became a city of dread where robbery, wounding, murder, rape and burning all added their share to the cumulative fear and only in our foreign compounds and in the refuges was there any sort of security. .

The authorities and especially the Military Police did their best to help us foreigners but for the city at large there was no help. Chinese were left there at the mercy of any soldiers whose dispositions led them into evil doing and when we had opportunity to protest the authorities professed to find it hard to believe such stories and consistently treated them as of little importance.

The Military Police were excellent but all too few in number: one of the first days just as it was getting dusk the hospital business manager Mr. Dzen rushed in as I was having a late tea after some scurrying round and besought me to go to his house in the next street and help him, as two soldiers were there looting. Not very happily I went and just as we got to the corner of the Hospital to turn down into the other street we saw a military policeman standing beside his bicycle giving directions to some soldiers; so Mr. Dzen rushed at him and began to write down in Chinese an appeal for help and he came right away with us. We (he rather!) caught one man in the house using a long sword bayonet and taking his name etc. he marched him off to the police headquarters....

When we bring these misdoings to the notice of the Japanese authorities we are sometimes expected to be comforted by the words "you should see Shanghai or Nanking or Kashing!"

What it is all to mean to our Church work we can't tell. The Chinese and Japanese armies have been all over our three country parishes in the Hangchow District Church Council and we shudder at what may have happened having seen the happenings in Hang-chow. So far the other three District Church Councils across the river have not been invaded and we pray that they may be saved from this horror, but everywhere terror stalks through the land and the stories we discounted to our Chinese friends before the Japanese occupation we can only now sorrowfully confess do not fully portray the horrors actually experienced.

In Hangchow there was a wonderful opportunity for the Japanese Imperial Army to show how a disciplined army can take possession of an undefended town but alas the opportunity was not taken. There was no defense, not a Chinese soldier left in the town, and the Japanese evidently knew in advance that this was so but instead of the soldiers being kept in order and the townsfolk being encouraged to keep the life of the town going, now five weeks after the occupation one can hardly walk anywhere in the city without seeing looting openly carried on by soldiers without any evident attempt by the authorities to interfere, and even now hardly anywhere is a woman safe.

As far as we foreigners are personally concerned we have not much complaint to make; only, as far as I know, three assaults, and these not very serious, have been made on foreigners, strangely enough one on each of the three nationalities represented, Bishop Deymien of the French Mission, Dr. McMullen of the American and Mr. George Moule, British, retired from the Chinese Customs Service and living in Hangchow (the son of a former Bishop of our Church here). The assault on Mr. Moule at his age, well over seventy, might very easily have been very serious. Our properties have been kept reasonably safe, tho' actually on our properties several of us have been threatened with rifle or pistol by intruding soldiers. This safety however only obtained where foreigners have actually been in residence; elsewhere no national flags, consular notices, church notices, military police notices availed to stop continued intrusion and looting. Even places which the Military Police wished to help us to protect had to be abandoned in the end and were visited continually and the contents gradually disappeared....

Wusih, aptly nicknamed by the Chinese as 'Little Shanghai ' is an industrial center with a peacetime population of about 900,000. It is about 105 miles due West of Shanghai, to which it is connected by several motor-roads and by the Shanghai-Nanking Railway. The following account of happenings at Wusih was printed in the special "Destruction in China" supplement of the China Weekly Review, Shanghai, March 19, 1938:

No more graphic account has been related of the last days of Wusih before the war-mad hordes of Japanese military descended upon the city, than this odyssey of an American doctor who left Shanghai October 14 for the doomed city, his motorcar loaded with clothes, food and medical supplies in order that he might alleviate the sufferings of the wounded and the hungry. His trip was a perilous one, taking the road on which two days previously three cars, carrying the British flag, were machine-gunned by Japanese planes.

His description of scenes witnessed a few miles before he reached Wusih is a damning indictment of the brutalities of Japanese warfare. The bombing of coal barges on the canal near the road, the shooting of helpless farmers in the field, the descending of planes upon innocent groups of peasants, machine-gunning them and following those who lived to run and firing upon them again.

His story of hardships, the daily caring for sick and wounded under the constant threat of death from the rain of Japanese bombs, is written in diary form. The following is his personal record:

October 16. A Chinese was brought to the hospital today, his intestines so badly torn by machine-gun bullets and the subsequent loss of blood made his case hopeless. When the Japanese planes approached, he ran for cover in a mulberry grove. The planes followed and machine-gunned him. At the same time, three other farmers were killed and four wounded, There were no Chinese soldiers within miles. Why, or for what purpose could these Japanese attack poor country people who are perfectly harmless?

October 17. This morning I went on ward rounds with the hospital staff. The building is crowded with wounded soldiers and a few civilians. Pitiful were those soldiers with legs and arms amputated and those who are so badly wounded. It is just a matter of time until they pass away. Certainly, it is a horrible thing. There were three women, each of whom had a leg amputated, after being injured during the severe bombing at the Wusih railroad station October 6.

We found the staff had built three huge bombing shelters below ground on hospital property for those who wanted to take cover during an air raid. The power plant which furnishes Wusih with electricity was disabled by bombs recently, so we have no juice for X-rays during the day, but a temporary plant gives us power at night. Then we are able to get radio news from Shanghai, provided there are no air alarms which means 'all lights out.'

October 18. Early today, just as we were starting on ward rounds, the siren sounded and we knew the Japanese planes were Wusih-bound. We kept on with our ward round, although we all had a gentleman's agreement that it is quite proper to seek shelter in the dugouts. Soon we could hear the heavy drone of planes. Then came the terrifying sound of the ships power-diving which always precedes the bomb explosion. I didn't know what this American hospital was in for and, although a colleague and myself continued our work, I couldn't honestly say that I was taking much interest in the cases. However, we both had previously decided that we couldn't run out of the wards and seek protection while helpless patients had to remain in bed. Soon the sound of bomb explosions reached our ears and we guessed that it was the railway station which had been hit. There are no defense works here and not a shot was fired at the ships which dropped four bombs in all. Shortly, a railroad guard was brought to us, the side of his head smashed by shrapnel. His condition was so critical he had no chance of living. Several others were killed and wounded in this bombing,

October 25. No bombings have yet occurred within the city walls and I don't believe any will. I wouldn't be anywhere else for a million dollars and I hope I can be of some use here. The hospital itself is plainly marked with American flags and in Chinese characters which are the same in Japanese.

October 30. No air raid today, but several alarms were sounded, warning of planes passing in the distance. Still no electricity and no prospects of getting any.

October 31. A direct hit on a Chinese hotel today completely destroyed it. The policeman on duty near there escaped shrapnel which splattered all around him. The terrific noise made him deaf. Bombs destroyed the clock tower and pitted the road with craters. The station had two direct hits and the freight godown was burned. We crossed the tracks and saw where a bomb had landed directly in front of the Washington Hotel and the Brothers' Hospital yesterday.

November 1. Local Chinese newspapers promise electricity soon. Hope it's true. As I write, a Japanese plane is circling overhead. Wish this war was over. Made tentative arrangements to resume my language classes with a former teacher in the Soochow Language School who is now in Wusih.

November 3. Two Japanese seaplanes arrived this morning and bombed for about twenty minutes, directing their missiles at empty trains. Later, when I was amputating some fingers, or what remained of them, on a soldier who had been struck by shrapnel, another plane came over. Fortunately for the operation, no bombs were dropped near us. We hear that the telegraph wires to Shanghai are cut and that the Japanese are crossing Soochow Creek while the Chinese continue to fall back.

November 4. Japanese planes raided us this morning during Chapel. They dropped bombs across the city wall, the closest to us as yet. They quite startled us as the plane motors were quieter than usual. Probably a new-type bomber. A train was hit and several people killed.

November 5, The lights came on today for the first time in three weeks. I found myself in much disfavour with the crowd when I blew a fuse out in attempting to plug in the radio. However, after the electrician fixed it, we failed to get the raido news because a boxing match was being broadcast.

November 10. This has been our worst day by far for bombings. Conservatively, 160 of them were dropped, causing heavy damage and several fires. The areas bombed were the mountain at Wei Sei, outside the city, the mill districts and the area beyond the West Water Gate. At ll.30 p.m., I was hounded out of bed by heavy explosions. From the window I could see a Verey light descending slowly, lighting up the whole city. Apparently the light revealed nothing worth-while, and the plane passed on. I learned that many wounded soldiers were killed in the bombing today when a military hospital was hit at Wei Sei, besides countless deaths among civilians in the mill districts. Civilians brought to our hospital were terribly mangled. A man had his left ear torn to shreds, his left biceps muscles almost severed, a long penetrating wound in his left thigh, his right foot torn almost in half (amputation will be necessary) and his genitals badly mutilated. He had a dozen other smaller wounds. Goodness knows where we will put patients if this bombing around here continues.

November 11. Planes bombed Wusih for an hour this morning deliberately picking their targets. I was in the operating room at the time and the sterilizer was making so much noise the explosions didn't bother me so much. In the afternoon bombing, the missiles came much closer, landing within a few hundred yards from the hospital. The house trembled again and again, and furniture danced a jig. I felt the urgent need for a cigarette.

We immediately went to the hospital and found that several pieces of shrapnel had hit it. The nurses seemed quite calm, but one or two of the doctors were jittery. We learned that the big normal school had been hit. Shortly, four horribly wounded civilians were brought in with legs and arms dangling grotesquely and all requiring amputations. I worked with a colleague in removing a man's leg at the knee and extracting a piece of shrapnel from his thigh. He also had a shrapnel wound in his buttocks where a piece had entered fracturing his coccyx and perforating his intestine. Now I am waiting for supper, and other operations are posted for tonight and tomorrow.

We heard a touching story today. When the dugout here was struck October 28 and all its forty occupants killed, there was a young child in there who was so terrified that no one could stop it from screaming. Believing planes would discover the hiding-place because of the noise, the mother was told to take the child out. She refused. The father finally carried the tot to a position behind a tree trunk. A few minutes later, a bomb hit the flimsy dugout and all inside were killed.

November 12. Today was a nightmare. A Chinese soldier, wearing a steel helmet, was sitting in the window when the Japanese bombers came over. He immediately ducked inside, but a few seconds later the bombs started hurtling down, falling on all sides of us. I'll admit my reaction was self-preservation. I crouched down, noticing at the same time that the room was clear of nurses. I was scared to death and sick with fear. I was ashamed of myself for being so. The bombs continued to fall with ear-deafening explosions. I knew that some of them had fallen just outside and I was relieved not to be hit. Almost immediately, they began bringing in people injured in the bombardment. The first man brought in had died of fright. Other cases of severe shock came, but I knew they had no chance to live. Another man with bad chest injuries was hopeless. A father called us to aid his daughter whose thighs were fractured, and his son, with one eye shot out. An old man came carrying his feeble wife upon his back. She was lacerated with shrapnel. In they came in droves, victims of Japan's attack upon civilians. Some are of the opinion that the planes overshot their marks, but I believe the bombing was intentional. They were flying low and could not fail to distinguish the very large freshly-painted American flags on all the roofs besides the flags flying over the two compounds. The damage to the compound was terrific. Walls were smashed, telephone poles riddled and the wires down. Projectiles had gone through neighbouring houses and debris was scattered all over the place. The exodus from Wusih is beginning. I can hear our neighbors nailing up doors and windows and moving out of the city as fast as they can. The Chinese staff is deserting en masse. The hospital chief hasn't said yet what he intends to do about this desertion except that it will be impossible to keep the hospital open and that our next step will be to get the remaining patients moved out. Although I might not enjoy it, I will stay to the last ditch if some of our staff members reconsider and decide to try and keep the hospital open. I reckon I'm a sissy, but I'm still scared.

November 13. None of the doctors appeared for duty today and we learned that some of them had left the city during the night by means of a military truck. The nurses are frantic to get away, but there are no buses available, all are being used at the front. The hospital chief feels terribly about turning the patients out of the hospital. The worst part of it is, he has no way to move them. None of those remaining here are willing to help. The chief feels: he may be criticized, but he has no other alternative. The place is lonely. Tonight there is only the gateman, one or two coolies, and a few nurses who are staying only for one or two days because they are unable to find transportation. The cooks, laundrymen, firemen, mechanics, carpenter, operating room coolie, druggists, laboratory men and all the doctors have gone. It would be impossible to care for these patients were we to keep them. Thankfully, some of the patients' are well enough to leave by themselves and by tomorrow I think we shall have only about a half-dozen to care for.

Bombing here probably hasn't been so bad as it has at Soochow and other places because there haven't been any troop concentrations here. However, the bombing has been unexpected and cruel for that reason and the fact that Japanese broke their precedent and bombed within the city walls.

Word came through tonight that we can get our wounded soldiers moved to a military hospital. That's a relief. But it also means" that it won't be long before the battle line is here.

November 14. I started the motor of the old car this morning to see if it would run. It was all right. I tied an American flag to its roof. We have decided to leave before daybreak tomorrow.

November 15. We left Wusih at 5:30 a.m. driving through the wreckage at West Gate. This area was swarming with soldiers, preparing to take cover for the day. Rickshas, carts and hordes of persons were streaming through the gate, fleeing from the city. The air was tense. You felt that panic was on the verge of breaking out. Every town we passed through we saw great crowds waiting for buses; however, the further we got away from Wusih the more normal things appeared. Shortly after ll p.m. we reached Nanking where great military activity was taking place. My one thought is, however, to get back to Shanghai.

November 19. We left Nanking yesterday and today we are anchored off Chinkiang. We leave tomorrow for Kowan where we will have to take small launches to go inland by canals. This move is to avoid the river booms.

November 21. Back in Shanghai again! And now, in the quiet of my home with my war-time moustache shaven off, I have much to be thankful for. But I cannot forget the misery we left behind us. We have been gone for slightly more than a month, but in that month I have seen enough to make me hate war forever. The misery and the suffering it brings to the innocent civilians is indescribable....