CONQUERED CITIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 2, 4 January 1939, Page 8

CONQUERED CITIES

LOOTED BY JAPANESE

WHOLESALE PILLAGING

[ While the Wuhan cities —Hankow, Wuchang, and Hanyang—are in many respects assuming more and more aspects of normality, in other ways they are showing increasing evidences of harsh treatment by alien soldiers, writes Tilman Durdin from Hankow to the "New York Times." ' Depredations by Japanese soldiers upon the Chinese people continue, with wholesale appropriations of Chinese property. Japanese are taking money, jewels, and valuables of all kinds from Chinese. Hundreds of instances have come to the attention of foreigners and indicate that thievery is being indulged in by nearly every Japanese soldier. The Chinese do not dare to resist. Chinese houses are being entered freely, goods being appropriated and furnishings removed. Wherever Japanese want a particular Chinese building they simply move in and move out the occupants. Foreigners who visited Wuchang on October 31 said that nine buildings out of ten had been looted, and loaded Japanese trucks were hauling expropriated furniture and valuables of all kinds through the streets. The Japanese are still burning certain slum sections that would be difficult to police. Included among the property looted recently were buildings of the American Christian Missionary Alliance. Fourteen Japanese soldiers entered and took out all bedding and cooking utensils. The United States Consulate is filing a protest. Isolated but authenticated cases of rape are being reported. Chinese men are being impressed freely into the Japanese military labour service. Wuchang missionaries have received a Japanese request for fifty Chinese men from a refugee camp for use as army labourers to aid in cleaning the streets. The missionaries were undecided whether to comply. NO "MODEL OCCUPATION." The Japanese occupation of the Wuchang cities has definitely ceased to be a "model occupation," as it promised to be on tbe basis of the behaviour of the troops during the first few days of the occupation. Food prices are soaring, and the Foreign Residents Association is considering rationing the food supply that was recently stocked up for emer-> gency. The Japanese have suddenly clamped down a strict curfew at 6 o'clock, closing the gates between former concessions, thus catching many foreigners away from their homes and forcing them to sleep at the homes of friends. However, Japanese marines have replaced Japanese soldiers on sentry duty in many sections of the city. The marines are considerably less strict in regard to the movements of Chinese and foreigners. The water service has been partly restored under Japanese management. ' The French Concession has relaxed its prohibition against the entry of Japanese military men, and a company of armed Japanese soldiers marched across the French Bund. An agreement has been reached permitting Japanese troops to cross the concession upon prior notification of the concession and with escorts of French troops. The Hankow race track and golf course has reopened, and a number of American naval officers resumed rounds of gdf. American sailors received their first liberty in ten days. They had an afternoon of freedom in the French Concession... Additional shops are opening .up, and a number of amusement resorts are again operating. JAPANESE AIM AT SIAN. Japan's next military objective in China will be Sian, capital of Shensi Province, with the dual purpose of severing the lines of communication between Generalissimo Chiang shek and Soviet Russia, and driving a barrier between the Chinese Communist area and other parts of China. This information was stated authoritatively here today, says a Tokio message to the "New York Times." Japanese Army forces advancing up the Han River from Hanyang have occupied the town' of Hanchwan, twentyfive miles upstream, said a, Shanghai message to the same journal. Northward of the Yangtse River the Japanese army was endeavouring to form a gigantic ring of men and steel 200 miles in circumference, ( hoping thereby to trap about fifty Chinese divisions retreating from Wuscheng Pass, Anlu, Naping, Yingcheng and Yingshan. All the encircled troops are daily bombed and machine-gunned from the air. A conference opened at Nanking between leaders of the new Nanking and Peking regimes. Among the group who flew to Nanking were Wang Keh-min of the Peking regime and Colonel Selichi Kita, a Japanese "adviser." Merger of the two regimes will be discussed. Delegates from Canton, Hankow, and the Mongolian autonomous regimes are also invited. A Japanese spokesman declared that it was not possible to give even a rough estimate of Japanese losses in killed and wounded during the three months' campaign between the capture oflKiukiang last in July and the. capture of Hankow.

He suggested that, on the average, each division engaged had suffered less depletion than each division engaged in the Shanghai-to-Nanking battles extending over the four months from mid-August to mid-December last year. The last definite casualty figures of the Japanese army, given out last December, admitted killed and wounded totalled approximately 150,000.

Even though each Japanese division lost a smaller average in the Kiukiang-to-Hankow campaign, there probably was more than double the number of divisions engaged in the drive from Shanghai to Nanking. This would indicate an appallingly large number of Japanese casualties.