BACK FROM CHINA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 January 1939, Page 5

BACK FROM CHINA

DR. T. A. WATSON RETURNS . TO MASTERTON EXPERIENCES ON HOMEWARD JOURNEY. CHINESE DETERMINED TO RESIST INVADERS. “It seems to me that the Chinese are quite determined to resist the Japanese as long as they can and that the Chinese think they are going to win,” said Dr T. A. Watson, son of Mr and Mrs T. F. Watson, of Opaki Road, Masterton, this morning, on his return after seven months’ service in a hospital in the Chinese war area. “The Japanese people,” added Dr Watson, “did not seem to be keen on the war at all.”

Dr Watson, who returned to Wellington yesterday by the Awatea, proceeded to China some months ago as one of the medical men sent by the combined council of the Red Cross and the St John Ambulance. He was stationed at a hospital at Chengchow, over 200 miles north of Hankow.

Dr Watson said he had found it rather difficult to leave China. On the first part of the journey he crossed the Yellow River, in company with two Chinese refugees, in a small boat. During the crossing, which occupied four hours, rifle fire hit the boat but the party made a safe landing on the other side of the river. The landing was made at a deserted spot and they were not noticed. At this place they were in country in which guerrilla warfare was being waged, though they had a pass from the Chinese commander.

A Japanese pass was necessary for the rest of Dr Watson’s journey by rail, but he was unable to secure it himself. A missionary to whom he had a letter of introduction came to his assistance, but the journey to Tientsin, which usually takes 18 hours, took three days. The guerrilla warfare made travel by night impossible, and, consequently, the journey was broken, and the travellers had to sleep at villages. Every time they stopped for the night their bags were carefully searched by Japanese soldiers. At one stage of the journey to Tientsin, the train was held up as the result of activities by bandits, who had ripped up a length of rail. The train was full of Japanese soldiers, who immediately got their machine guns ready for use. The journey from Tientsin to Japan was made on a Japanese steamer. “It was a morbid boat,” said Dr Watson. There were on board the remains of 400 Japanese soldiers, carried in urns in the smoking room, with incense burning.” On the day on which Dr Watson reached Kobe, another boat arrived with 1,200 urns aboard. Yet the Japanese persisted in saying that they had lost only 40,000 men. Dr. Watson said he thought they had lost many more than that. It appeared to be the practice, he said, for all the Japanese dead to be buried in Japan. Dr Watson spent a few days in Japan before continuing his journey. There was little he saw to indicate that Japan was at war, though he found that his reception was not cordial. The general impression he gained was that the “man in the street” was not very interested in the war with China. “If you said that you were a German you were a ‘big shot’ and you could get anything you wanted,” he remarked. He travelled by the Canadian Pacific Railway steamer Empress of Russia, to Shanghai and Hong Kong, whence ho caught another steamer for Sydney. Referring to the position in China generally, Dr Watson said, there was only one length of railway, that from Chengchow to Sian, which was not in the hands of the Japanese, who also held all the principal cities. The Japanese, however, did not have any hold of the country area, which were still being administered by the Chinese Central Government, although in many cases these areas were well behind the Japanese lines. An American military attache to whom he had spoken had spent six months behind the Japanese lines in country subject to guerrilla warfare and during that time had been in three different arsenals which were making munitions for the Chinese. That gave some indication of the conditions in the country areas. Guerrillas wore constantly breaking railway communications and when that occurred reprisals were taken by the Japanese, who burnt all villages within a mile or so of the occurrence and shot people apparently at random, making some excuse for their action.