HEAVY SLAUGHTER AT CANTON

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 1, 24 September 1937, Page 5

HEAVY SLAUGHTER AT CANTON

-United Press Association.-

Dead Bodies Piled High In Wrecked Streets

WOMEN INSANE WITH HORROR

By Electric Telegrapli—

— Copyright.

(Received 24, 8.45 a.m.) The correspondent of the British United Press at Canton states : — ■_ "Relays of huge bombers, convoyed by fighter planes broke through the Chinese defences at six o'clock this morning and dropped scores of incendiary and explosive bombs. It was the worst jraid that Canton has yet experienced. Numerous fires are blazing and the people are in a state of panie." Scenes too terrible to describe are reported by eye-witnesses who tonred the stricken areas of Canton following Japan's ruthless air-raid. ' The casualties are expected to exceed those reported in the fighting in Shanghai. It is estimated that 2000 were killed. Whole streets of poor dwellings were shattered to bits, and limbs and mutilated bodies are piled high in utter confusion. Hundreds of women, many insane with terror and horror, are searching fcv relatives. - Others, not comprehending the reason for this slaughter' from the skies, are. roaming the streets with pathetic bewilde.ment. It will be weeks before the city can be cleared of humaa jemains. Foreigners are expressing the greatest indignation, as the jraid seemed to be directed at innocent non-combatants, and not at military ob j ectives. Later: It is estimated that 3000 non-combatants were killed in the bombing of Canton, while the suburb of Tungshan was halfrlemolished. Crowds fled from the city, crouched among graves on adjacent hillsides and gazed terror-stricken from the place of the dead upon the place of the dying. "Yet they were still able faintly to cheer when two Chinese airmen, though desperately outnmnbered, soared npwards to encounter 12 huge Japanese bombers and their attendant fighters. The Japanese fighters turned in acceptance of the challenge, 12 machines, three abreast, racing to meet the Chinese amid bursts of macliine-gun fire. Then the unbelievable happened : a Japanese fighter faltered, dropped out of formation and nosedivecl . A.burst of flames followed a trail of smoke and incinerated the plane and its crew as the wreckage fell to destruction in the tortured city. A Shanghai message reports that the damage to foreign property in the air-raid on Nanking yesterday was confined to the sinking of a pontoon which communicated with hulks used as ofiices and dormitories by the firms of Jardine, Mathieson and Butterfield. The casualties will not exceed 200.