Holding On

Dr. Love Rankin, a U. S. woman doctor attached to the Chinese Red Cross, one day last week tried to visit her husband who teaches school in a Shanghai suburb. Japanese bombers roared overhead. Frightened, she ran, thought of hiding behind an automobile, changed her mind, jumped behind a tree. The automobile was blown to bits. Bombs burst all around her, buried her in debris. Two coats and a sweater protected her from serious injury.

Maurice Ropaport, a Russian, was inspecting the rifle of a friend in the Shanghai Volunteers inside the Municipal Government Building. It went off. Maurice Ropaport died. Dr. Rankin and Maurice Ropaport were the first two foreigners hurt by gunfire in a fortnight's fighting of the Battle of Shanghai.

For all Japan's warships, all her guns, for all her planes, for all her 10,000 sol diers and sailors, Shanghai's Chinese de fenders under pale slender little General Tsai Ting-kai were doggedly holding on.

Japan's attack was divided in two parts : The effort to drive Chinese defenders out of the Chapei native district behind the International Settlement; the bombardment of the Woosung forts 16 miles away where the Whangpoo River flows into the great Yangtze.

Woosung was China's Verdun. Day after day Japanese warships in the river blasted away at the Chinese batteries (pausing politely to let U. S. and British steamers and warships pass). But the Chinese, for once grimly determined, held on. The redoubts of the forts were blown into heaps of muck. Three thousand Japanese bluejackets went ashore to occupy Woosung Village. No sooner did they move out against the forts than the battered trenches came to life with such a withering rifle and machine gun fire that the Japanese were forced back. Back into action went the ships in the river, back to Shanghai went long lines of Japanese ambulances.

Ferocious Rear Admiral Koichi Shio-sawa was under a cloud last week. Word came from Tokyo that he had been superseded by Vice Admiral Kichisaburo No mura. This was immediately followed by a Shanghai despatch to the effect that Admiral Shiosawa had committed hara-kiri in shame. He had not. Rear Admiral Shiosawa remained in official command of the First Fleet, stationed at Shanghai, but Vice Admiral Nomura, higher ranking officer, arrived from Sasebo Naval Base as a sort of supervisor. Pleasant grey-haired Admiral Nomura, with many a friend in the U. S., looks startlingly Nordic. During the War he was Japanese naval attache at Washington. He was a member of the Japanese delegation to the Washington Arms Conference, and he brought a Japanese squadron to New York in 1929. His arrival at Shanghai was quite a social occasion. U. S. Vice Admiral Taylor's aide, Lieut. Henri H. Smith-Hutton, paid a call. Admiral Nomura stepped into his barge and returned it. British Vice Admiral Kelly popped over for a chat. The Press was invited and Admiral Nomura made a little speech. Chapei's cannon rattled the teacups.

Human beings can get used to anything and Shanghai's International Settlement got used to its battle last week. Cinemas in the Settlement re-opened for afternoon performances. There was tea dancing. The 31st U. S. Infantry arrived from Manila to the roaring strains of "Mademoiselle from Armentieres," and officers prepared for a long stay by looking for apartments in town. Reporters interviewed Countess Ciano, better known as Edda Mussolini, wife of the Italian Consul General. She, busy feeding Il Duce's grandson, complained that the curfew law interfered with her social engagements. In Rome her father despatched Admiral Domenico Cavagnari with a cruiser and a destroyer to help protect her and other Italians.

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