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A DIARY OF THE AIR RAIDS.
For the previous two or three weeks we had been having wet weather, and were congratulating ourselves that the rain at least kept the Japanese aeroplanes away. Since the beginning of May when an attack had been made on Canton near the Sun Yat Sen University there had been a respite. But on Saturday May 28th a spell of fine weather began again,--blue sky with patches of fleecy white cloud hanging fairly low. This made very good cover for the Japanese airmen who seem to have developed the technique of diving out of the clouds to drop their bombs, and then retiring to safety before the anti-aircraft guns could spot them. Indeed for a great part of the bombing we have been unable to see the aeroplanes at all. The anti-aircraft fire has been vigorous and persistent. Two planes are said to have been hit, but it has been an unequal struggle and emphasises that as far as aerial attack is concerned Canton is not a heavily fortified city.
Saturday May 28th.
In the morning I was over at Pak Hok Tung which lies across the river from Canton. The meeting I was at, was of course distrubed by the roar of planes and the detonation of bombs and anti-aircraft; but it was not till the local Red Cross corps received a 'phone call to go and help at Lychee Wan in the North West of the city, that we realised how serious the raid had been. At 1 o'clock the raiders came back and dropped more bombs which I afterwards learnt had fallen among the rescue-workers near Wong Sha Railway Station. As we came back in the launch we could see smoke coming up from a match factory only a few hundred yards from Shameen. I began to go with another foreigner towards our home in the East of the city, but the planes came over for the third time that day and the police would not let our rickshaws proceed till the firing was over.
A colleague who is a member of the Committee of Justice had been round by the Wong Sha Station which was destroyed. Bombs had also fallen on a great many small houses in the neighbourhood, and he reported ghastly scenes, of dead and wounded. Coming home I saw an undertaker's car piled up with rough wooden coffins.
Sunday, May 29th.
The raiders came about 10 a.m., power-diving, apparently very close to where we live. It is a shattering noise and instinctively makes you recoil into a corner or fall flat on the floor. Fortunately there was an interval and I was able to get to a church service in Sai Kwan the West suburb. Another raid began just as we were finishing, and it was rather a disturbed service, with the sound of ambulances and cars rushing by, and then a general movement away from the west part of the city where the Wong Sha Station lies. The Japanese have been persistently attack- ing this district. Hackett Hospital which is of American Christian foundation lies at least half a mile from the Station, but bombs have dropped just outside it.
After Church I got a rickshaw, although planes were overhead, and reached the Columbus Restaurant in the middle of Canton. Two planes were visible and hundreds of people sheltering in doorways and shops were looking up at them as they dodged the anti-aircraft fire. The Restaurant was packed to the doors. People were sitting on the stairs and in every available place. But when the All Clear Signal had gone most people went out and we could pursue, more or less normal life for the rest of the day.
Monday, May 30th.
The air-raid began about 9.30 a.m. The school where we live is strongly built with four concrete floors above the entrance hall which has become a kind of public shelter. Between 100 and 200 poor people from the neighbourhood come cach time. It was particularly noisy that morning. The planes were power diving near us again and bombs were falling not far off. One exploded three hundred yards away in a field. Whenever there was a lull we would rush upstairs to look out and see what damage had been done. Tremendous columns of smoke and dust were going up from the Siu Pak (Little North Gate) district, while far away to the West we could see from the smoke that Wong Sha Station was being attacked again.
Some of the Boy Scouts from the School prepared to go and lend a hand at the places nearest to us. They went very willingly, but we nearly started too soon as the planes came back while we were still in the school grounds. We had to wait for a few very unpleasant moments by a bamboo hedge while the planes roared, and on three occasions at least we could hear the switch of bombs hurtling through the air. There were terrible scenes of dead and dying at Siu Pak where scores of little houses and shops had been destroyed. In a village not far from our school a bomb had fallen in a bamboo grove, and there had probably been a house near by. When we got there, there was only a huge crater. Some Red Cross workers were helping with the wounded. We helped some soldiers with digging. An old woman recognised the body of her small grandson. A disconsolate mother kept crying "Why did they come here?" Why indeed? There was nothing that could be called military any- where near.
May 31st-June 2nd.
During the middle of the week the air-raids were not quite so intensive. On Tuesday the Japanese raided Sai Tsuen where the Electric Power plant and other factories are situated. On Wednesday there was no raid. I took the opportunity to visit the Sun Yat Sen Memorial Hall. It is one of the finest buildings in China, and stands in its own grounds well apart from the other buildings. The north west corner of the building was hit by a bomb and badly damaged. Broken blue tiles were scattered everywhere on the pavement. Two other bombs were at aimed it, one of them hitting a Primary School which stood at the corner of the square. It is difficult to see the reason for, or to excuse this act of vandalism.
Friday, June 3rd.
I got caught in the streets during a raid in the afternoon. Traffic came to a halt, while people moved quickly, but without panic, taking what cover they could. I found myself near the Sun Yat Sen University and knew it was not a good spot to be in. I made my way by stages to the Lingnan wharf and found that three bombs had fallen into the river, killing some boat people. I crossed in a sampan to Lingnan, and passed the cotton factory which had also been hit. Ambulances were already on the spot.
Saturday, June 4th.
This was one of the worst raids we have had. I was in the YMCA building in the Bund at the time. There were several tremendous explosions, and we could hear the bombs coming through the air which feli near the Pearl River Bridge, and behind the Provincial Bank. Whole rows of houses were demolished there. Four or five bombs had fallen at the corner of Tai Hong Rd. and Hon Man (Wing Hon) Rd. Somehow to see that destruction and bodies laid out in the main shopping street of Canton brings out more clearly the cruel futility of war and its threat to all that we call civilisation.
Sunday, June 5th.
Whitsunday. Our Church service was held in very trying conditions. Bombs had fallen about 400 yards away the day before. On this day too the explosions sounded almost as near; but somehow we finished the service. Two bombs bad fallen on the old campus of the National Sun Yat Sen University. Attacks were also made on the Municipal Building- another very fine achievement of modern Chinese architecture and on the broadcasting station, but these were not successful.
Monday, June 6th.
Another terrible day. Raids began at 8 a.m. Some bombs fell not far from the Sun Yat Sen University Hospital. Others fell near the old East Gate and it is difficult to see what they could have been aimed at. They hit a number of poor houses, which collapsed. I realised how many people must have been trapped and buried alive in ruins when we helped to unearth a woman and child in this district. At first we could only hear them, but after some feverish clearing away of bricks and rubble and wood, their heads appeared. The little boy could be got out, but the woman was buried almost up to the neck. Then there was another raid, and an agony of waiting while more bombs dropped. Afterwards the rescue party got to work again and she was freed. But hundreds of people in Canton have not been so lucky, and some are probably still buried in ruins.
Round at the YMCA they had had an even worse time. Bombs had fallen on the French Hospital almost next door, on some houses behind the Power Station 150 yards away, and a third at the foot of the new
Tiger Balm building on the Bund. Again a terrible roll of dead and wounded. It was quite difficult to get home owing to the number of bombed areas that had been cordoned off by the police.
Tuesday, June 7th.
In the afternoon there was another raid. Three bombs fell on the grounds of Lingnan University. One of them only 130 yards from the house of an American Professor, failed to explode and buried itself 10 feet into the earth.
June 8th to 13th.
Night raids began as soon as the moon was a little way past half full. By now a tremendous number of people have left Canton for the country or Hong Kong. As soon as there is an alarm those who are left either run out to the fields on the outskirts, or go to some part of the city that is still considered safe. There is a hasty procession of cars, then silence while we listen for the distant drone of the planes.
The Japanese appear to have hired spies to let off flares on the first night, and many were seen going up from all parts of the city. But most of the traitors must have been caught, as there were none on the following nights. The airmen seem to be more cautous by night. Only one plane comes at a time, and the bombs have mostly fallen on the edge of the city. The Electric Light Plant, at Sai Tsuen, which was put up by German engineers, to be paid for out of the running profits, was badly damaged in these night-raids.
Raids have taken place on five nights, and the moon will last long enough for them to come five times more.
On each occasion about six to ten bombs have been dropped, with the usual chances of death and destruction. There is the additional terror of it happening by in the dark. On June 8th there was also a fire in an oil-shop, possibly started by incendiaries The gallant Japanese airmen made their contribution to the peace of East Asia by machine-gunning the people who were trying to put it out.
Canton is now very quiet, but not completely deserted. There has been no panic, and no looting. Government Officials Police, soldiers, Labour Corps, Red Cross workers, doctors and many others remain to protect life where they can, and to preserve peace in the city. The Chinese civilians are doing courageous work in exceptionally trying conditions. It is because we believe that their cause is essentially the cause of humanity, that we appeal to friends in the West to sympathise actively by helping to restrain Japanese aggression, and to stop war supplies going from Britain and the United States to a country which uses them in this way.
GILBERT BAker.