SHANGHAI AIR RAIDS

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 70, Issue 101, 11 February 1950, Page 5

SHANGHAI AIR RAIDS

PROTEST BY AMERICA U.N. AID SOUGHT (N.Z.P. A.—Copyright) (Rec. 10.0) WASHINGTON, Feb. 10. The United States has protested to the Chinese National Government against “deliberate aerial attacks” on American property in Shanghai, and Shanghai organisations, representing nationals of 17 countries, including New Zealand and Australia, have appealed to the United Nations to try to stop the bombing of the city. The United States State Department said to-day that its protest demanded a prompt categorical assurance against any further attacks on the Americanowned Shanghai Power Company and Standard Vacuum Oil Company installations in the city, which were damaged in a recent Nationalist air raid launched from Formosa.

Chinese Communists alleged that the Nationalists had been using American /pilots, but a State Department spokesman said: “Positively no American pilots are serving with the Nationalist military force. As far as we have heard, there are no Japanese fliers in the employ of the Nationalist Government.”

The appeal to the United Nations, which was made to-day in a petition from civic and religious organisations in Shanghai, said that heavy casualties resulted among civilians, from the bombings on February 6 in the power plant area of the city. It said: “We protest against this sacrifice, of human lives. We appeal to the United Nations, in the name of all the principles for which the organisation stands, to take immediate action, namely, to approach the proper authorities to forestall the calamity which faces these defenceless, suffering human beings, and to allow them freedom to live.”