Hongkong, Sept. 7.
Chinese sources to-day reported that a Japanese cruiser and destroyer carried out the occupation of Pratas Shoal, 180 miles south of Hongkong, site of a meteorological station.
Twenty Japanese dead were carried ashore there, indicating that the warships had met with action somewhere along the coast, the reports said.
The Chinese staff at the station, it was alleged, were tortured by the Japanese Naval Landing Party in an effort to make them disclose the location of an arms depot which, according to Chinese sources, actually does not exist.
Refugees arriving im Hongkong claimed that the Japanese had forced members of the Sea Products Company's staff to kneel before Japanese machine guns while a knife was tied in a vertical position over one man's head and a marine stood behind, threatening to drive the knife into his skull. Despite the inability of the Chinese to disclose the purported arms depot, the Japanese continued the torture for some hours. Eventually the hapless natives were placed aboard a motorboat which was sent to Hongkong.
The Japanese, they said, indicated their intention to make the island a seaplane base.—United Press
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