Posted on 06/05/2008 5:33:27 AM PDT by Homer_J_Simpson
On the heels of the condemnation by the United States and Britain of bombings of civilian areas the Japanese yesterday launched another severe airplane raid on Canton. Casualties were put at 700 dead and 1,300 wounded, adding to the toll of 750 killed and 1,350 injured on May 28. The semi-official Domei News Agency declared Japan’s policy would not be changed by the protests. The press denounced the attitude of the United States and Britain.
Foreign sources at Hankow reported the Chinese resistance along the Lung-Hai railroad had collapsed and a general retreat had begun. Hankow was nervous and evacuation of officials, their families and civilians was hastened. Heavy rains, however, had hindered the Japanese advance.
Reports from all quarters agreed that this was one of the worst instances of wanton or careless bombing of an open city. Unofficial estimates place the casualties at 2,000, of whom probably 700 were killed, but it was impossible to obtain an accurate tally because hundreds of houses were wrecked, burying numerous occupants who have not yet been extricated.
[Japanese bombers killed 750 persons and wounded 1,350 on May 28. Friday’s condemnation by the United States and Great Britain of bombings of open cities brought a declaration yesterday by the Japanese news agency that Tokyo’s air raid policy would not be changed.]
Observers said scores of mangled corpses were picked up in various populous parts of the city, away from the military defenses, and alleged the Japanese planes repeatedly flew over Shameen, the international district, to bomb near-by objectives, one of which was the steel and concrete Pearl River bridge, which was not seriously damaged.
Another objective appeared to be a dugout where the Governor of Kwangtung Province, General Wu Teh-chen, usually went for shelter during air raids. Several bombs fell close by but none hit the dugout.
All American and British mission hospitals, which were filled by last week’s bombings, were called on today to care for hundreds more and were unable to cope with the demands. It is feared numerous wounded received only hasty attention by harassed relief workers and that if the bombings continue hundreds will receive no attention.
There was no news of Chinese defense planes, so it is thought the skeleton force remaining in Canton did not ascend for battle. More accurate and more intense anti-aircraft fire indicated new batteries had been installed.
TOKYO, Sunday, June 5 (AP). – Domei, the Japanese news agency, said last night that a “well-informed” source, the designation usually given to official opinion, had indicated that British and American denunciations of air attacks on civilians would not alter Japanese tactics. Without quoting any one directly, Domei said:
“The Foreign Office statement fully explained the [Canton] Bombing, and it is believed the protests or representations from other countries will be dealt with along the lines of this statement.”
The reference was to a statement Wednesday in which the Foreign Office spokesman attacked “Chinese propaganda” and declared that last Saturday’s raid on Canton was exclusively confined to military establishments. The spokesman displayed a map showing thirty-one anti-aircraft gun emplacements defending Canton, as well as forts, airfields, plane assembly plants and arsenals.
He said the Japanese raiders “did not molest civilians” and that a majority of he victims were killed by “careless anti-aircraft fire.”
After referring to the Foreign Office explanation, Domei said:
“However, official circles urged the Japanese to watch closely the international manoeuvers in connection with the Chinese incident.”
The newspaper Yomiuri asserts the Japanese Government will merely “offer a cordial explanation in reply to the representations from foreign countries.”
The newspaper points out that the latest aerial bombardments of Canton do not differ from those of recent months except in scale. The Miyako states that such phrases as “defenseless city of Canton” and “bombardment of noncombatants” are purely Chinese propaganda.
The newspaper Kokumin says the results of Japanese air attacks in the past year showed it was not the Japanese custom to slaughter Chinese civilians.
“To carry out its imperialistic rule,” Kokumin continues, “Britain conducted indiscriminate aerial bombardments in Arabian regions, in the interior of India, etc., for many months.”
The newspaper then asks why the same action in China should suddenly be regarded as inhumane.
“That Britain dares protest when no British lives or property was lost merely indicates that Britain regards China as her possession,” the newspaper concludes.
More front page news.
Shouldn't the title read "Real Time - 70 years" instead of "Real Time + 70 years"?
As in real time is "right now", 2008, and if we wanted to "go back" to 1938 we'd need to "subtract" real time, as in "minus", or "-"?
Conversely, if we were to add time (+) to "right now", 2008, we'd find ourselves in 2078, in the middle of a robot war with terminators and stuff.
Thanks, but the only relevance this has with current events is McCain was 1 year old.
Here is how I look at it. Your reply was posted at 5:39:27 AM PST. Was that not the real time? It is now about 6:37 AM PST. With respect to your reply that is real time + 58 minutes. For more information, see my tagline.
I admit it does not involve Iraq. I guess that means there are absolutely no parallels to any circumstances currently existing among today's family of nations.
Real time, the time that you and I live in even as we breathe, type, and read, is "Right now": About 10:32 AM. "Real Time" minus one hour would be 9:32 AM. "Real Time" plus an hour would be 11:32 AM.
OKSooner, I am going to use your argument as an occasion for a rant of sorts. I appreciate your argument and you are not alone. BTW, if you want to be on my ping list, let me know.
I am ready to entertain suggestions for an alternative tag to put on my titles. I thought Real Time + 70 Years was fine but I am not obsessive about it. The constant replies I get like this one from OKSooner have gone from being perplexing, to humerous, to merely distracting. I would prefer that readers focus on the content instead of the title. So I am ready to move on. There are some tags I will not use like, "this day in history...." It's been done and it doesn't capture what I am attempting to achieve. That is, not just coverage of one event on one day long ago, but a sense of the times and what people experienced the events we now know all about unfolded during their "real time." I would like to provide a perspective on history that you don't get from most sources. If it was just about "this day in history" I wouldn't post a lot of the things I do.
I don't think it would be respectful to the body of Free Republic readers to constantly post old stories without some kind of alert that they are not current so a tag is needed. Nothing comes to by brilliant mind so I am open to suggestions. Something that gets the fact of the age of the stories as well as the subtext I have tried to describe would be good. Latin might be good. As long as you don't tell me it means "events of an earlier epoch" when it really means "Homer is a big fat doofus." But then people who don't know Latin might get mad at being fooled. See the problem? If there are no winners I will stick with RT+70 and henceforth ignore all dissenters.
Personally, I think OKSooner was probably put up to this by Petronski. But it’s neither hear nor there. I went over this with Petronski earlier and had pretty much decided that I wasn’t going to waste any more bandwidth on people being stupid with their vision of semantics.
I have been saving your threads with the intent of doing a “1938 Year in Review” at the end of the year. What I have done is put the Year, Month and Day at the header of the thread so that it autosorts the way I want.
If everyone cant let go the damn “real time” thing I would suggest just putting the date in the title. But in all honesty I’m fine with you leaving it as it is. I’m smart enough to understand that it is 70 years ago and dont need the extra instruction as too what Real Time +70 means.
Just to add to this...
On June 6th the capital of the Henan province, Kaifeng, fell to the Japanese. This put Zhengzhou in jeopardy which was a major rail hub linking Wuhan and Xi’an.
The newspaper then asks why the same action in China should suddenly be regarded as inhumane."
From this article it appears the Japanese did not consider the bombing of civilians to be inhumane.
No doubt that would include the bombing of Japan's own civilians, right?
Lately I have been reading about the events of 1945. The Japanese will have ample opportunity to ponder the humaneness of bombing civilian population centers.
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