LIFE IN SHANGHAI UNDER JAPANESE

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 28, 28 October 1942, Page 6

LIFE IN SHANGHAI UNDER JAPANESE

Barbarous Gendarmerie (By Telegraph.—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Special Correspondent.) (Received October 27, 7 p.m.) LONDON, October 26. Miss Gytha Owen, Christchurch, has arrived in London from Shanghai where, at? a temporary member of the British Embassy, she was exchanged for a Japanese. She is a portrait painter, and had spent six years in China, where she also painted nine murals, including one for PanAmerican Airways at Hong Kong and others at Tsingtao and Kunming. She arrived at Shanghai from Hong Kong in October, 1941, and worked in the Ministry of Information, doing publicity broadcasting. When war was declared on December 8, 1941, she went to the Grosvenor Hotel, where members of the British and American Embassies stayed. She remained there till. August,' when the transfer, was effected, and then sailed for England, via Lourenco Marques. “Fortunately, I had little contact with the Japanese,” she said. “Shanghai simply died under their domination. There was very little food, which went up to a terrible price, hundreds of Chinese, dying of starvation. It was a frequent sight to see dead Chinese in the streets or wagons passing loaded with heaped up bodies, leaving an unimaginable stench in a temperature of 106 in the shade. “Everyone loathes the Japanese, with fear as a basis, because you never know what the gendarmerie may do.

"Members of the Japanese consular staff, the army and the navy have some ethics, but the gendarmerie are entirely barbarous. We had rather an unpleasant voyage to Lourenco Marques, the ship being overcrowded, but it was better in the Narkunda, though we were still crowded. I slept hi the ship’s hospital with 54 other people.” Miss Owen is joining the Ministry of Information in London.