CHAPTER VII

DEATH FROM THE AIR

IVARELY IN HISTORY can civilians have been wiped out by aerial bombs in the wholesale fashion witnessed during the Japanese invasion of China. There is virtually no important city in China, save in the remoter provinces, which has not been visited by raiding Japanese bombers since the first attack on August 15 at Nanking by Japanese planes which flew across the sea from Formosa. Japanese aerial activity in North China in July and early August 1937 was insignificant in comparison to attacks from August 15 on throughout China. The widespread character of the Japanese aerial attacks can be judged by the following Domei1 report from Tokyo, printed in the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury, an American-owned English-language daily, of November 3, 1937:

Tokyo, Nov. 2--(Domei)--Eight-hundred and fifty naval planes took part in attacks on Chinese positions on the Shanghai front and the hinterland between Oct. 25 and 27, a spokesman of the Admiralty revealed today.

These aircraft, he added, dropped in all 2,526 bombs, weighing 164 tons. The consequent Chinese losses, the spokesman asserted, were high....

The Osaka Mainichi, an English-language paper, in its edition of October 15 stated that Japanese planes had bombed more than sixty places of umilitary importance" in the two months which had elapsed since the initial bombing of Nanking on August 15. The cities which had been bombed (to Oct. 13), as listed in the Mainichi, were as follows:

SHANTUNG PROVINCE

Hanchuang, Tsaochuang, Yenchow, and Tsining.

1 Domei is the official Japanese news agency.

KIANGSU PROVINCE

Nanking (including Pukow), Shanghai, Kuyung, Wusih, Kian-gyin, Soochow, Kunshan, Kiating, Taitsang, Sungkiang, Suchow, Yangchow, Nantsung, Haichow, Lienyun, Huaiyin, and Nan-hsiang.

CHEKIANG PROVINCE

Hangchow, Ningpo, Haining, Kienkiao, Kashing, Chuki, Kinhua, Chuhsien, and Shaohing.

FUKEAN PROVINCE

Amoy, Lungki, and Kienow.

KUANGTUNG PROVINCE

Canton, Sheklung, Fumoon, Waiyeung, Yingtak, Kuking, Lok-chong, Kityang, Chaoan, Swatow, and Whampoa.

ANHUI PROVINCE

Wuhu, Kuangteh, Anking, Chuhsien, Pengpu, and Shuhsien.

KIANGSI PROVINCE

Nanchang, Shangjao, Yukiang, Tsingkiang, and Kiukiang.

HUPEI PROVINCE

Hankow (including Wuchang and Hanyang), and Siaokan.

HUNAN PROVINCE

Ch uchow.

Commenting editorially on this report in the October 30, 1937, issue of the China Weekly Review, Shanghai, Mr. J. B. Powell, editor of the Review and himself an intrepid eye-witness observer of Japanese military activities, stated:

This list of towns, few of which have any possible military significance, probably has been doubled by this time, particularly when the dozens of villages and hamlets in the Shanghai area which have felt Japanese frightfulness, are included in the list. On Sunday afternoon (Oct. 24) the writer observed about two dozen planes, ten of them twin-motored monoplanes carrying six bombs each, which were engaged in bombing the farm villages, most of them one-family-and-relatives hamlets, located in the farming and gardening area stretching northward from Soochow Creek. A foreigner who had observed the bombing in the morning stated that 18 planes had been engaged from daylight to noon and that approximately 200 bombs had been dropped, most of them of the largest variety, weighing in excess of 200 pounds. The number of bombs dropped in this area in the afternoon probably exceeded 150, making a total of 350 in a territory that could easily be observed by the naked eye. The Japanese aviators staged a veritable field day of destruction, going through most of the antics they would perform had it been a public exhibition for entertainment purposes. Squadrons of three or four planes would power-dive from high altitudes dropping missiles of great weight and explosive character upon Chinese farm-houses made of bamboo and mud-plaster with tile roofs, the whole structure probably not costing more than the equivalent of $40 or $50 in American currency. Fortunately most of the occupants of these farm-houses had evacuated, or had become wise in the art of dodging. But despite the precautions one observed a few wounded civilians, usually elderly women, making their way or being carried toward the Settlement. At one place on Soochow Creek some villagers were observed burying five civilians in one grave, a crater created by a Japanese bomb.

Some idea of the strength and power of the Japanese bombs was provided by the size of the craters produced by bombs dropped at the corner of Pearce and Rubicon roads. Here the bombing was of some military significance because the Chinese have a sand-bag outpost on the bank of the creek and in addition they have constructed a trench system in the vicinity. A half-dozen bombs dropped here left craters ranging from twelve to eighteen feet across and probably six or eight feet deep. But the sand-bag redoubts on the corner were missed entirely while the trenches that caved in were quickly repaired. None was injured on this occasion. The villages along this creek paid a heavy toll in earlier bombings, but now most of the villages are deserted, except for a few elderly persons. But many farmers and gardeners still hang on and continue to work in their fields, even when bombs are dropping within a few hundred yards. The foreign and Chinese populations of Shanghai can thank these farmers and gardeners for hanging on because they have kept this city from starving. The long strings of peasants with baskets of vegetables, observed along the outlying roads, tell the real story of the hardihood of the Chinese sons and daughters of earth.

The headlines over the reports of death and destruction published in the local papers tell their own stories of the tragedies which have become commonplace. For example, JAPANESE BOMB SUNGKIANG, KILL TWO HUNDRED, WOUND FOUR HUNDRED--FORTY KILLED IN ONE DUGOUT SHELTER.

The Chinese withdrawal from the Chapei sector on Wednesday afternoon provided the Japanese airmen with another opportunity for slaughtering noncombatants. The armed Chinese forces withdrew across the Soochow Creek bridges at Jessfleld under cover of darkness, hence were not molested by the Japanese airmen. Thousands of Chinese civilians, chiefly women and children, packed the roads and single-track railway bridge crossing Soochow Creek on the following morning. The opportunity for slaughter was too tempting to resist apparently for a Japanese pilot repeatedly flew low over the bridges and machine-gunned the crowds of terrorized people. On one occasion he left a dozen dead and an equal number of wounded, including several women and children, lying on the bridge. Similar scenes were enacted on most of the outlying roads.

Against the charge of indiscriminate slaughter of civilians, Japanese military and diplomatic spokesmen have repeatedly reiterated that the objectives of Japanese aircraft are exclusively military. They have also asserted that press reports of their aerial activities are "much exaggerated" because of "mendacious Chinese propaganda " Can such claims be accepted? Is Japanese bombing of civilians a mere accident, something incidental to military operations? It would be impossible to give here a comprehensive answer to the above question but the subjoined newspaper and eyewitness accounts will enable the reader to form his own opinion.

AROUND SHANGHAI

Shanghai and its environs soon felt the brunt of Japanese aerial attacks. On August 28, 1937, Japanese airplanes bombed the South Station, Shanghai, which at the time was crowded with refugees. The British-owned and edited North-China Daily News, an English-language daily published in Shanghai, reported the tragedy in its issue of August 29, 1937, as follows:

TWO HUNDRED REFUGEES KILLED IN RAID ON

SOUTH STATION

Japanese Bombers Litter Nantao Streets

with Death and Destruction

Chinese Deny any Soldiers in Area

Shanghai's civilian casualties mounted considerably yesterday when Japanese bombers raided densely populated Nantao, littering the South Railway Station area with death and destruction. According to a conservative estimate, well over two hundred persons, most of whom were refugees, were killed or wounded. The list is by no means complete, as the over-worked hospital authorities in the Chinese city, French Concession and the Settlement were checking the number of cases last night.

The death-dealing mission was composed of twelve Japanese planes at about 1 :45 p.m. Leisurely circling over the South Station sector, the raiders dropped no less than eight bombs, most of which exploded. Crowded with over one thousand refugees, most of whom were women and children, the station was worst hit. Other places where missiles exploded were Kuo Ho Road (Native Goods Road), two blocks to the north of the station; San Kuan Tang Street, and Loh Ka Pang area.

Altogether four bombs landed around the station. As the airplanes finally left the scene, dense smoke shot up high into the sky, while on the platforms and tracks were scattered charred and badly mutilated bodies.

The first bomb exploded a short distance from the station, wrecking a water tower close to the tracks. Many fell, killed by shrapnel outright or pinned down by debris. As wounded persons ran for shelter, a second one descended, tearing down an overhead bridge and damaging a section of tracks. Blood and wreckage strewed the immediate vicinity. At the same time, terror reigned in streets close by as additional missiles exploded one after another.

The South Railway Station has been the gathering place for refugees seeking transportation to the interior ever since the outbreak of hostilities two weeks ago. Many of those killed yesterday were known to have been patiently waiting for accommodation in Hang-chow-bound trains during the past two or three days.

The wall close to the booking office of the station was smeared with blood, as mutilated bodies piled up at its foot. A large number of refugees were crowding the office to secure tickets and a bigger crowd was on the platforms when the raiders appeared overhead.

Death overtook many of the refugees who attempted to push their way into the administration building, but failed owing to congestion and the narrow passage. The building itself was only slightly damaged, window panes being shattered to pieces....

Scores of students stationed in the Ta Tung College played heroic parts as they rushed to the station, doing the rescue work. They were practically the first on the scene, removing debris and helping the injured on to lorries which arrived shortly after.

Many of the wounded were rushed to hospitals in the city, but a large number came to the Settlement. The Lester Chinese Hospital reported about 100 cases, mostly women and children. The operating rooms were kept busy until evening.

When a representative of the North-China Daily News visited the Lester Chinese Hospital in the afternoon, extra beds were seen being placed in wards. A group of the wounded were brought to the hospital by Chinese ambulances. One baby, badly wounded, was picked up from the side of its dead mother. At least two children, each aged about thirteen, lying in the hospital, lost their parents.

The hospital reported last night that two women, two men, a boy and a girl succumbed to wounds. Several deaths were also reported by Paulun Hospital.

Terrified refugees, many of whom bore tags, were transported into the Settlement by lorries supplied by charity organizations. The South Station was barricaded for repairs and other work.

The bombardment of Nantao evoked the bitterest denunciation

from the Chinese military spokesman at the daily press conference yesterday afteroon.

Japanese allegation that the station was bombed 'because it was used for the transportation of Chinese units from the south' was most emphatically refuted. The spokesman stated that not a single soldier could be found anywhere in Nantao yesterday or recently.

Nantao is a densely populated city and entirely devoid of Chinese troops or military positions, he said. It was pointless for the Japanese to justify their attack by alleged intentions to 'harass Chinese military positions.'

The spokesman was at a loss to understand the wanton destruction of Chinese civilian lives. He said it was perhaps aimed at terrorizing the Chinese populace, or else as a retaliation for the loss of Japanese lives in Hongkew during the hostilities. He emphasized that no warning of the raid had been given by the Japanese.

A foreign correspondent at the press conference also confirmed that there was not a Chinese soldier in Nantao when he toured many streets in the city only recently.

Questioned as to the problem of evacuating Nantao citizens, the spokesman said it was most difficult in view of the railway lines having been constantly disrupted by Japanese aerial bombardment. Passengers were sometimes harassed by machine-gun attacks and bombing by Japanese planes.

Rubicon Village is less than an hours drive from the heart of the Shanghai International Settlement. The little town was bombed several times, a typical account being the following from the North-China Daily News of October 8, 1937:

OVER 15 KILLED IN AIR RAID

ON RUBICON VILLAGE

Seventeen Chinese, including a number of children, were killed in Wednesday morning's air raid by Japanese bombing planes on a Chinese village situated about a quarter of a mile from the Rubicon Inn on Rubicon Road. Chinese and foreign circles yesterday were unable to account for the raid, as it is reported that no Chinese soldiers are to be found in the village....

According to the villagers the raid started at about 10 o’clock in the morning, when nine Japanese bombers suddenly appeared and dropped a number of bombs; the planes, it is alleged, then returned, to dive low and spray the village with a hail of machine-gun bullets.

Between twenty and thirty villagers were injured in this, the first raid. Those killed comprised the mother and wife of one villager, the two young daughters of another, the baby son of a third, and two as yet unidentified Chinese....

In almost every case, the bombing of civilians has been followed by machine-gunning from the bombing planes or from accompanying fighting planes. Many of such attacks were, for the most part, witnessed by thousands of Shanghai residents. The Shanghai Englishlanguage foreign newspapers at the time were filled with protests from foreign eye-witnesses. The unending repetition of the attacks brought severe condemnation by Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, Commander-in-CMef of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, who stayed in Shanghai throughout the hostilities there. Admiral Yarnell's statement was reported by the North-China Daily News of November 13, 1937, as follows:

CONDEMNATION OF BOMBING BY

ADMIRAL YARNELL

"I have been grieved by the sight of so much destruction in and around Shanghai during the present hostilities and I wonder when mankind will realize the proper uses of aviation," said Admiral H. E. Yarnell, Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, when he and his officers were the guests yesterday of the Royal Air Force Association of Shanghai at the Weekly luncheon in "The Dome." There were rules for warfare as much as for any other activity, he said, and it was distressing to see the wanton destruction of property and lives of noncombatants by the belligerents and to realize the helpless plight of noncombatants here in Shanghai....

"Rules of warfare," he went on, "must be observed and indiscriminate bombing and shelling should be studiously avoided."...

No useful purpose was fulfilled by wanton destruction of the property of noncombatants, he concluded, and it was time that the nations realized that aviation had far more uses than for the wholesale destruction its operation had affected.

Sungkiang is a peaceful city of about 100,000 clustered around age-old canals and waterways, and is typical of the countless medium-sized centers which have been bombed. A semi-industrial center, it is thirty miles south-west of Shanghai and a station on the Shanghai-Hangchow railway line. On September 9, 1937, the North-China Daily News, Shanghai, described the bombing of a refugee train at Sungkiang in the following news report:

300 CIVILIANS

KILLED IN RAID

ON SUNGKIANG

Japanese Planes Destroy

Crowded Train

Scenes of Horror

Fleeing Local Refugees Meet Sudden Death

Yet another catastrophe overtook Shanghai refugees yesterday, when Japanese airplanes bombed a Kashing-bound train, killing three hundred persons, mostly women and children, and wounding an even larger number.

The raid was carried out at Sungkiang, first important station west of Shanghai on the Shanghai-Hangchow Railway, shortly after noon. Leisurely circling over the coaches, the bombers rained death on hundreds of refugees.

It was ascertained that five coaches were completely destroyed without a single soldier among the casualties....

The time of the bombing was 12:20 p.m. when the train had just reached the platform waiting for the right of way to proceed to Hangchow.

How many Japanese airplanes took part in this raid on Chinese civilians was not specified in the reports, but it was known that they dropped scores of bombs at the station, wrecking, in addition to the five coaches, the over-head bridge, and the water-tower....

Reports from railway authorities and Sungkiang officials depicted ghastly scenes at the railway station after the bombardment, with the place littered with blasted pieces of human bodies and blood-soaked debris.

The police and railway officials there were still busy in the afternoon removing the wounded to hospitals, of which there are not many in Sungkiang, while emergency burying corps were being sent for to take care of those killed.

Mr. O. K. Yui, Mayor of Greater Shanghai, who received the information of the bombing, bitterly denounced the "latest instance of Japan's complete disregard of human feelings by slaughtering Chinese civilians far behind the battle front."

"It was an undeniable fact that the train which was subjected to the most inhuman bombardment at Sungkiang was carrying refugees away from the war zone," he said. "The attack," he said, "was deliberate, and absolutely inexcusable, since the train was heading for Kashing and could not by any stretch of the imagination be considered to be carrying reinforcements to Shanghai."

The foregoing typical accounts of attacks on villages and comparatively smaller towns, by no means complete or comprehensive, have been given in some detail as they are perhaps less dramatic, although in toto far more ruthless and devastating, than simultaneous attacks on such large cities as Nanking, Canton, and Hankow which figured prominently in the world Press. The raids on Nanking continued from August 15, 1937, to the actual occupation of the capital on December 13, 1937. On December 18, 1937, the Reuter news agency reported from Tokyo that: "The Imperial Headquarters issued a communique today stating that the Japanese Naval Air Force visited Nanking more than 50 times and dropped more than 160 tons of bombs on Chinese troop concentrations and military establishments there from the outbreak of hostilities to the fall of the city. The communique also said the total number of airplanes which raided Nanking exceeded 800."

A summary covering a period of about one week consisting almost exclusively of extracts from Renter reports from Nanking was published in the China Weekly Review, Shanghai, of October 2, 1937. This summary follows, in part:

JAPANESE REPEATEDLY BOMB NANKING

DESPITE PROTESTS OF THE U.S.A.

BRITAIN AND FRANCE

Ignoring the protests of Great Britain, the United States and France, twenty-nine Japanese planes visited Nanking during the early hours of Sept. 25 and subjected the capital to heavy bombing. South City, the most thickly-populated section of Nanking, received the particular attention of the raiders....

The head-office buildings of the Central News Agency were completely destroyed and five of its staff members were seriously wounded during the second raid. Despite the disaster, the Central News Agency quickly adjusted itself to the losses and is now carrying on as usual. Altogether three bombs landed on the buildings which were situated at Tuchiakou, only a block from the famous Banking Circle. The region is thickly inhabited and is bereft of any establishments of military importance. The destruction of the news agency, which is a cultural institution, is generally believed to have been deliberately designed and executed to ruin the largest news gathering and distribution agency in China....

The civilian casualties resulting from the air raid on Nanking, Sept. 25, amounted to six hundred persons killed and wounded. About five hundred bombs were dropped by the raiders, which made a rapid succession of five attacks on the capital city between 9:30 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. The Central Hospital and the National Health Administration which are situated on the same compound were the targets of two Japanese raids in the afternoon. Fifteen bombs exploded in the compound, though none of them scored a direct hit. One of the craters caused by the bomb explosions was twenty feet deep and forty-five feet in diameter. The dormitory occupied by the doctors collapsed from the force of the explosion. The hospital kitchen was wrecked and the operating room slightly damaged.

The bombing of the hospital, according to Central News, could not have been done by mistake, as a huge red cross emblem and four large Chinese characters equivalent to the words 'Central Hospital' were painted on the roof.

The auditorium of the National Health Administration, which has been cooperating with the League of Nations on health matters, was badly damaged. The adjoining institute for the training of health officers-an institution partially supported by Rockefeller funds--also suffered serious damages. Two Chinese servants were killed. Among the victims of the Japanese bombardments were the Metropolitan Electric Plant and Waterworks, the Central Broadcasting Station at Kiangtungmen, the Municipal Health Station at Ssupailou, the Cantonese Hospital at Chungshan Road, and the offices of the Havas News Agency, Transocean News Agency and United Press Agency.

Bombs of 250 kilograms in weight were used in the attack on the new residential district, one making a huge crater on Chungshan Road, Nanking's main thoroughfare, at the corner of Shansi Road. Two missiles fell on a small hill at the corner of Ninghsia Road, badly shaking nearby residences, breaking window-glass and causing electric bulbs to drop from their sockets.

Bombs were also apparently aimed at the Ministry of the Interior and the Garrison Headquarters in the South City, but they missed their mark, and instead, destroyed a pawnshop. Seven residences, behind the Bank of China were also destroyed, but the occupants escaped injury, all having taken refuge in dugouts. The Telegraph Office also came in for attention, but the building was not hit, although several missiles dropped near it....

A bomb was dropped inside the compound of the French Consulate on Hohui Street during the rain on Nanking by Japanese aircraft on Sept. 25. During the raid on Sept. 27, five bombs were dropped within two hundred meters from a French gunboat stationed at Sancharho, Hsiakwan.

Two raids previous to those above described were carried out by Japanese airmen on Sept. 22. An armada of over fifty planes participated in the attack, which lasted from 10:35 a.m. until noon; fifteen machines' took part in the second raid, which was very brief. An average of two or three bombs were dropped over three hundred different places, including the South City, and the new resi-dential district, where the American, Italian, and German Embassies are located and where the residences of practically the entire local foreign population are situated....*

After only an hour's respite, ten Japanese planes staged a second raid. They came from the north-east and, when they reached a point above Pukow, circled round in single file, and, power diving, dropped bombs one after the other, aiming at the Tientsin-Pukow Railway. Then they zoomed up and disappeared towards the north-east. According to officials of the French Consulate, four bombs, weighing five hundred lbs. each, landed during the raids on Sept. 25 within a hundred yards all around the Consulate. This was the closest shave any Embassy or Consulate has had so far....

Canton is the Shanghai of South China. At the apex of the populous Pearl River Delta in the southern province of Kwangtung, Canton has a peacetime population of from 1,000,000 to 1,500,000. On September 23, 1937, the city was the target of a furious air attack, the North-China Daily News of September 25, reporting the raid in the following Reuter2 report:

1 The Reuter report cited here by the Review also included these details: "Although the exact number of casualties has not yet been determined, it is believed that more than one hundred refugees were killed when bombs landed on a camp at Hsiakwan, Nanking's waterfront, during the second raid....

"The site of the refugee camp at Hsiakwan presented a gruesome spectacle when visited after the raids, with the twisted remains of the victims scattered over a wide area. The mat-sheds housing the thousands of refugees, set alight by the bombs, were still burning. The smoke of the flames, rising in huge columns into the sky, was visible for miles round...."

2 This Reuter report was criticized as being exaggerated and untrue by Japanese spoksmen, following which Reuter categorically denied the Japanese allegation, and issued another report giving further corroborative details.

THOUSANDS DIE IN CANTON

WHEN PLANES ATTACK

Scenes of Horror Follow Air Raids

Over Poor Areas

No Military Buildings Hit During Day

Canton, Sept. 25--(Reuter)--Reuter's correspondent made a personal tour today of the areas devastated by Japanese planes. Whole streets of poorer dwellings in the vicinity of Tungshan, the eastern suburb of Canton, had been literally torn asunder by the explosions of bombs.

In some places the corpses were as1 thick as flies on fly-paper, with limbs and mutilated bodies piled in the utmost confusion. Hundreds of weeping women were scrambling in the ruins for the remains of relatives while thousands more roamed the streets terror-stricken and bewildered, their minds partially deranged by the horrors of yesterday and today.

Reuter estimates that several thousand persons must have been killed or maimed, although it will be days, maybe weeks, before an accurate check can be accomplished.

Today's casualties dwarfed those in Shanghai on Bloody Saturday.

Foreign observers are puzzled over the nature of Japanese objectives, as not one Government building or military establishment was hit.

Most of the missiles had fallen in the densely packed dwelling areas of the poorer classes reducing the buildings and their occupants to mincemeat.

One ancient Chinese woman was killed while sitting at her front door. She still remained upright, quiet in death.

A grim-faced Chinese gentleman raised a piece of matting and displayed to Reuter's correspondent a mass of mangled remnants, saying simply: "This was my wife."

A children's school in the vicinity of Tungshan was completely demolished. Fortunately, because of the holidays, the occupants were few in number.

Allowing the populace no respite, Japanese planes subjected Canton to another two raids this morning. The first occurred at four o'clock, when a lone Japanese machine dropped five bombs. While en route to and returning from its objective, the plane flew low over Shameen, particularly when over the British bridge.

The second raid began at 8 :30 o'clock. At least ten heavy bombers and a number of smaller fighters participated in the attack. The sky in all directions was brimful of aerial activity. Fights, bombings and the bursting of anti-aircraft shells presented an amazing spectacle against the clear blue morning sky. , , ,

In a pamphlet issued by the Canton Committee for Justice to China, Dr. F. E. Bates, an American missionary doctor in charge of a hospital in the eastern suburbs of Canton, reveals that early in the afternoon of September 22 Japanese planes dropped six bombs on a residential area, killing about three hundred persons, mostly women and children. When the bombing stopped, Dr. Bates drove a truck to the scene and brought out many wounded and dying people.

We arrived at the scene of the bombing on September 22 within 20 minutes after the explosion, Dr. Bates declared. The "all clear" signal had not yet been given, but the disaster was evidently so great that at every turn police and soldiers had to facilitate our passage through the otherwise closed streets. The smoke and dust of the explosion had not yet cleared away, and the road for some distance was heavily piled with twisted timber, broken glass, bricks, plaster, and all manner of building material. As we approached the scene of the bombing, police and soldiers on every side were calling and beckoning us to the place where the wounded lay.

As soon as it became evident that a rescue party had arrived there came from every corner and hole in the debris which had, but a few moments before, been their living quarters, the most wretched, pitiable pieces of humanity that can be readily imagined. Some were seen, with blood dripping off their faces, crawling over the demolished buildings, calling loudly to their loved ones who were buried under the fallen structures.

One old lady, past eighty years of age, holding her bleeding head, called urgently to us to rescue her children and grandchildren who were buried in the mess beside her. Numerous children were running about in a semi-dazed way trying to find mothers who could be seen nowhere. One man, badly cut about the head and face, came out of a little hole where a bit of flooring from the upper storey had formed a triangle with the wall and floor below, carrying a little girl about ten years old. He pleaded with us to bring him back in the first load. His wife, two smaller children, and mother were buried under the houses and he seemed terribly fearful that something would happen to separate his only living child from him.

The story might be continued almost indefinitely, for the sights of those few moments, while we were filling the hospital cars with the wounded, were many indeed. We were but one of six hospitals which went to the rescue. Between groans of pains some were mourning for lost members of the family. Others whose families could all be accounted for had lost all of their worldly possessions. Where could they be able to pass the nights after leaving the hospital? Where could they get food?

The scenes of human pain and woe were almost innumerable and defy description. They were not living near a military camp, an arsenal, important railroad, or any kind of military defense works. It was one of the busy streets of this section of Canton, and yet the pitiless eye of' the invader regarded not men. His was but a program of ruthless destruction and terror.

A general picture of Japanese aerial activity in South China appeared in the China Weekly Review, Shanghai, on October 30, 1937. This summary follows, in part:

HOW JAPANESE BOMBERS WREAK

DESTRUCTION IN CANTON

Canton, October 12—(Correspondence)—Villages of Kwantung Province, fishing and trading junks, the railways and industrial factories and the city of Canton, including un fortified areas of the city, are today the targets for Japanese bombing planes.... Those attacked... have no way to protect themselves from death by the Japanese fire. It is impossible to give the exact number of the Chi-nese dead and wounded. At a conservative estimate the Japanese bombs have killed a total of eight hundred persons in and about Canton, all of them civilians, some of them women and children, who, for the most part, have been killed in areas far removed from anti-aircraft guns.

The Japanese bombers, in addition to bombing residential sections and causing death and injury to many, have tried to destroy the Chung Sang University and the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. The University has a group of beautiful, newly-erected buildings which have cost millions of dollars. Japanese bombers have tried to hit these buildings. Bombs have fallen in their vicinity but so far none of them have been hit.

In all there were fifty-six air raids on Canton up to Sept. 11. Planes have just come over my head as I am writing. This means that planes have threatened the city on an average of about twice a day for the last month.

The important Wuhan industrial center, commonly known as the "Chicago of the Orient" is composed of the three cities of Hankow, Wuchang, and Hanyang. The Wuhan cities are about seven hundred miles up the Yangtze River from Shanghai, and have a peacetime population of approximately one million.

On September 26, 1937, the North-China Daily News printed a Reuter report from Hankow which follows in full:

HANKOW TERROR

IS HEIGHTENED

BY NIGHT RAID

Hospital Workers Operate by

Candle Light

Dreadful Carnage in Slum District

Hankow, Sept. 25—(Reuter)—After the disastrous air-raid experienced in the afternoon, more death and destruction were caused in Hankow last night when Japanese planes revisited the city and dropped more bombs. The second attack lasted but ten minutes but during this brief period considerable havoc was created.

Every available Chinese doctor, dresser and nurse has been rounded up by the authorities, and the sufferings of the victims have been somewhat alleviated by the marvellous work of the Chinese Red Cross and the Methodist Mission Hospital, which threw open its doors to the dying and wounded.

Scores of operations and amputations were performed by candle light owing to the electric light system failing, while the very badly wounded received morphia to ease their terrible pains.

The morning revealed that an area measuring approximately 200 by 150 feet had been entirely reduced to a shambles, three bombs having landed within this space. Rescue work was still proceeding, and the debris were being sorted in search of further victims.

The most harrowing spectacle was witnessed by Reuter's correspondent when he made a tour of Wuchingmiao, the slum section of Hankow, after the first raid had converted the area into a charnel-house.

The streets in the district, only six feet wide, were fringed with poor hovels which collapsed like a pack of cards, burying their occupants as well as passers-by. Parts of bodies were strewn everywhere, which were gathered and piled up in heaps by rescue parties. More ghastly, however, was the occasional sight of an arm or leg waving feebly from beneath masonry which was too heavy to move without adequate apparatus.

Standing at a street corner for ten minutes, Reuter saw over 120 mangled bodies carried past, some moaning terribly, others completely lifeless. Particularly pathetic was the sight of stretchers bearing infant victims. All around the area the dead mingled with the dying. The majority of the injured were bleeding from gaping wounds and completely naked.

The proportion of children killed seemed inordinately large, presumably because most of them were indoors at the time. Tiny bodies seemed to outnumber those of adults.

Police, students and volunteers worked heroically under the most trying conditions, extricating the injured and removing the dead. Many students appeared visibly exhausted late in the night but stuck to their grim task.

The Mayor, Mr. K. C. Wu, and other prominent Chinese officials personally directed operations and prevented wholesale confusion.

Rescue work was hampered by the failure of the electric lighting system and the lamentable shortage of doctors and ambulance workers, although the few available labored unceasingly.

Some ten thousand Chinese were living in Wuchingmiao when the raid occurred. It is stated that at the time of the bombing there was no Chinese soldier for miles around, while the arsenal, presumably the objective of the Japanese planes, is at least four miles distant.

Mass hysteria seized the occupants of a nearby Chinese girls' school as a result of the bombing. Girls ran hither and thither, shocked and demented by the terrible sights they had witnessed.

Besides Hankow, Hanyang and Wuchang also suffered from the raid. One of the bombs which fell in Hanyang struck a refugee camp, killing sixty and wounding a large number.

A bomb also narrowly missed the Wesleyan hospital in HanKow caring for hundreds of wounded.

Inordinately large fires were started where bombs dropped, and at a late hour last night most of these were still burning. Altogether nine Japanese planes took part in the raid, and of the bombs dropped two fell into the Yangtze, barely two hundred yards from the British river gunboat "Aphis."

Wuchingmiao, the slum district of Hankow, which was bombed yesterday, presented an even more tragic appearance after being re-visited by Japanese bombers today.

Thousands of bewildered, homeless victims wandered through the streets, while tired relief workers were still engaged in digging out victims, both dead and alive, some so badly mangled they were better dead than alive.

Reuter's correspondent encountered a ten-year-old Chinese boy bearing the slight corpse of his mother on his shoulders. He reverently laid her at the feet of a hospital gateman and asked that she be given a proper burial while he searched for his missing brothers and sisters.

Reuter's correspondent then looked into a hut and saw three men sitting upright in natural attitudes, all quite dead. One was clutching a dead child. In one room of another dwelling was a pile of corpses, while in the next room a Chinese woman was unconcernedly cooking a meal.

Chinese reports claim that one Japanese bomber was brought down forty kilometers from Hankow by Chinese pursuit planes' after yesterday's raid.

It is estimated that the raiders came over at a height of two thousand feet, and foreign observers believe, they could not fail to notice the thickly populated conditions of Wuchingmiao and the absence of any military objectives.

Meanwhile, fearing another visitation, anxious watchers scanned the skies all day long.

CONTENTS 目次

Chapter

Foreword (Timperley)

序（ティンパレー）

(洞富雄教授の解説）

Chapter I Nanking's Ordeal (Bates & Magee)

第一章　南京の試煉（ベイツ博士＆マギー牧師）

Chapter II Robbery, Murder and Rape (Magee)

第二章　略奪・殺人・強姦（マギー牧師）

Chapter III Promise and Performance (Bates)

第三章　約束と現実（ベイツ博士）

Chapter IV The Nightmare Continues (Bates)

第四章　悪夢は続く（ベイツ博士）

Chapter V Terror in North China

第五章　華北における暴虐

Chapter VI Cities of Dread

第六章　恐怖の都市

Chapter VII Death From the Air

第七章　空襲による死亡