A Week in the Catacombs

Chungking really got it last week. In one 24-hour period, there were 22 hours of alarm. In one three-day stretch, there were 50 hours. The Japanese came over seven days in a row.

The gentlemen from Japan were not out to ruin property: they were out to break spirit. Most of the time the attackers sent only small squadrons, sometimes only three planes in a wave. But this was enough to keep Chungking under alarm, and keeping 250,000 people in dugouts and 150,000 others out in the hills two-thirds of the time was well calculated to make life a Chinese puzzle.

When the all-clear sounded after each long siege, the populace staggered out from the city's catacombs, sick from fatigue and hunger. None had done much sleeping; few had eaten anything, except perhaps a piece of fruit or a dry roll or peanuts bought from peddlers at the dugout mouths. Peasants were prevented from supplying markets, Government officials had to suspend vital work, laborers could do nothing after raids but gorge and go to sleep. Citizens tried to leave town, but were caught by new raids before they could get away. Chungking's foreign newsmen were inconvenienced when the Press Hostel--their home and office--crumbled under three direct hits. Terrific August heat made the dugouts too small and too smelly.

There was a repetition, though less serious, of the city's mass stifling (TIME, June 16). This time a direct hit closed one entrance to a dugout while incendiary fumes blocked the other. Estimated dead: 400.

But Chinese spirit is more durable than brick and mortar. The adaptable citizens of Chungking immediately started enlarging dugouts, so that work could be carried on there. Mass evacuations to the country began. The no-immediate-danger signal was sounded sooner, so that dugout denizens could get more air. Construction began on a new Press Hostel.

Only one thing made the Chinese impatient. They wondered where those American planes were they had heard so much about: Vultee (48C) Vanguards and Curtiss (P-40) Tomahawks and maybe even Boeing (B17) Flying Fortresses.

In the face of the Japanese pounding, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek told his people: "Show your dauntless spirit in this crucial hour. . . . China's sons will soon be avenged."

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