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amounted to 1 Sikh policeman, 11 Chinese killed and
4 Chinese wounded.
On 2nd March, 1939, General Tanaka, Chief of
Staff to General Ando commanding the Japanese Army in South
China, came to Hong Kong to arrange, amongst other things,
for payment of claims arising out of the Japanese bombing.
The usual courtesy calls were paid. and a full apology
was made to the General Officer Commanding on behalf of
General Ando. In the afternoon a Conference under the
Chairman ship of the Colonial Secretary took place at
3 p.m. General Tanaka was accompanied by his Staff
officer, Colonel Ohira and by Mr. Oda, the acting Japanese
Consul-General.
The Conference began by Colonel Neville giving
the British version of the bombing, and handing a short
written account of it to General Tanaka. General Tanaka
did not dispute our statements, but said he would like to
give the account he had had from his own Squadron Leader.
The orders for the Squadron were for the main body to
bomb Sham Chun and for one flight to bomb the Chinese
Customs House. He said that one flight mistook the
river running from North to South for the frontier river
and that they thought they were in Chinese territory.
He admitted that bombs had been dropped in British
territory and that machine-guns had been used. He added
that the Japanese had very indifferent maps, and from the
map which he produced there seems no reason to doubt his
statement. Colonel Neville pointed out that it was
impossible for anyone to bomb a target situated in the
position occupied by the Customs House without violating
British territory. General Tanaka admitted that this was
80.
The Conference then discussed the question of
The Japanese seemed prepared to pay
compensation.
whatever we asked, provided it was perfectly clear that
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