Changchun, June 30.
War clouds hovered menacingly low over the strife-ridden Amur River border zone to-night after a sharp encounter between Soviet gunboats and Japanese and Manchoukuo troops.
One Soviet vessel was sunk and another disabled in the combat at about 3 o'clock this afternoon, a Kwantung Army communique said. This was less than 24 hours after the Soviet Foreign Commissar, M. Maxim Litvinov, had unconditionally promised the Japanese Ambassador, Mr. Mamoru Shigemitsu, in Moscow, that Soviet troops holding the two Amur River islands would be withdrawn.
According to the Kwantung Army, three Soviet gunboats steamed into the channel south of Sennuha Island, about fifteen kilometers upstream from Chike, and opened fire on the positions held by Japanese and Manchoukuo forces on the southern bank of the river.
"Our forces," the communique said, "were compelled to return' fire as a result of which one of the vessels was sunk, another was seriously damaged, and the third fled."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.