Birthday Celebration

At 3 o'clock one afternoon last week citizens of Hankow. China's temporary capital, heard the ominous roar of approaching airplanes. Within a few seconds they sighted, coming from the northeast in perfect formation, 50 Japanese bombers and pursuit planes. A few minutes later the authoritative echo of exploding bombs reverberated through Hankow's narrow streets.

Not unfamiliar to most of the 1,500,000 inhabitants of Hankow and environs are air raids, but those Orientals and whites who did not run to air-raid shelters soon learned that this one was different. Out of cloud banks north of Hankow began to dart fast pursuit planes unlike those guarding the big Japanese bombers. They dived, attacked the invaders. Soon a spectacular dog fight involving not less than no planes, with the Chinese numerically superior, had developed. Big bombers were seen crashing to the ground, some lighter craft were observed tailspinning into the neighboring Yangtze and Han Rivers. Most of the crashing planes seemed to be Japanese.

At the end of the 30-minute fight the Chinese claimed a "complete victory," tallied the Japanese casualties at twelve pursuit planes, eight bombers. Later, back in Shanghai, a Japanese communique put the Chinese losses at 51 planes, said only two of the Mikado's raiding craft had failed to return. Although U. S. newsmen raised eyebrows over both sides' claims, one fact they accepted as obvious: the long inactive Chinese air force, once destroyed, once reorganized, composed of Russian, Italian, French, German, American, British and Chinese aircraft and men, had again been revitalized. That the Japanese might have difficulty maintaining their aerial superiority was indicated by the arrival via British-controlled Hong Kong of huge airplane shipments from western Europe, of other flying fortresses from Soviet Russia via Soviet-controlled Outer Mongolia.

The principal object of the raid was not China's provisional capital, but the arsenal across the river at Hanyang. Although the arsenal was undamaged, a crowded circular area facing the Yangtze was destroyed at the cost of hundreds of lives. To Japan's aerial warriors the raid was in celebration of sacred Emperor Hirohito's 37th birthday.

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