Use of the Shanghai Waterworks tower in Sinza Road in the International Settlement by the Japanese for signalling purposes was confirmed by authoritative sources yesterday afternoon, &ccording to a Chinese military spokesman.
Since Saturday this point of vantage had been regularly used by the Japanese to signal to Japanese planes which have been bombing the Chapei area, he said. Upon receipt of the report to this effect, American Marines guarding this sector investigated, discovering two Japanese members of the Shanghai Volunteer Corps in the water tower. They were told to leave immediately..In spite of heavy bombardment and aerial attacks during the past few days, the Chinese line around bursts of shrapnel appeared in the air around them, and more than duce it looked as if one of the planes must be hit. On the whole, however, the Chinese anti-aircraft fire wes well Behind the bombers, the gunners seemingly preferring to wait until the machines had passed over before disclosing their own. positions, The Japanese retaliated with some heavy. shelling of the. district in which the anti-aircraft guns were hidden. The bursting of their shells could be clearly seen from the Settlement south of the creek, but it was fairly obvious that they had little idea of the location of the guns they were after, Until yesterday the Chinese had been content to shoot at the Japanese planes with machine-guns, and it was believed that the anti-aircraft gun had been moved into position under cover of night, as a disagreeable surprise to the Japanese aviators who, up to yesterday, paid slight attention io the machine-guns, Yesterday, however, the shrapnel drove them higher than usual, though it did not interfere with the perfect formation they kept all the time.
A fire was observed yesterday afternoon near the Civic Centre, but by evening it had been brought under control or had burnt itself out. It was believed to have been caused by a Chinese shell.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.