WHOLESALE HARA-KIRI

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 195, 3 September 1937, Page 5

WHOLESALE HARA-KIRI

— Per Prcss Association-

Japanese Soldiers Prefer Death to Capture i FIERCE FIGHTING AROUND SHANGHAI

(By Telegrapli-

« -Copyright).

(Received 3, 12.25 p.m.) SHANGHAI, Sept. 2. An amazing instance of wholesale liara-kiri occurred at Lotien to-day during figliting of Ihe fierccst description. Wounded, and faced with. capture by tbe Chinese, Sub-Lieutenant "Watanabe cbose this terrible death. His example was immediately followed by 50 Japanese soldiers also wounded and in danger of capture. One Japanese company was so cut up that only an officer and a few privates emerged from the battle. The Japanese had previously claimed that Lotien was in their hands, and it may have been at the moment of the claim. Similarly .with other points, wliere the fighting sways forwards and backwards. Throughout to-day, however, a battle raged for Lotien, and when darkness fell the Japanese artillery still carried on. Japanese planes signalled to their artillery by means of coloured parachute flares which guided their fire. It was an awesome spectacle, for the flares and bursting shells had as a background a menacing sky illuminated by three huge fires on the northern boundary of the Foreign Settlement. The Japanese admit that Paoshan has not been captured, but they claim to have bottled up a considerable Chinese force tliere and that the gap between Lotien and !Woosung has been filled up. The Japanese shelled Paoshan from warships, pounded it with artillery and bombed it from the air. The town to-night is aflame, but the Chinese apparently are resisting to the last. The Japanese 1 are also fighting hard for Kiating, but the Chinese are holding out. The Japanese state that their investigation into the wounding of Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen has been concluded and that a report has been sent to Tokio. The cholera outbreak in Shanghai is subsiding.