Brief War Interlude in Tour of Lines Taking a brief respite from Buddhist chants, a Japanese Buddhist priest on October 27 captured a Chinese soldier armed with a rifle and hand grenades, the "Shanghai United News" reported yesterday.
The priest—the Rev. Gyoshu Shimidzu, abbot of the Myoho Temple in Kobe—is also a corporal on the reserve list, the Japanese daily added.
Accompanied by two other Japanese priests, Abbot Shimidzu left Shanghai on foot for the front on October 20, to pray for the souls of the dead, to give spiritual encouragement to the living.
On October 27, the three priests joined the Tanigawa detachment, and the same afternoon entered with the troops the now historic village of Miaohangchen.
Together with the soldiers, the three priests then continued to advance upon the Kiangwan village. Somehow, the three men managed to part company with the detachment.
"Suddenly," the abbot told the "Shanghai United News," "a Chinese soldier, armed with a rifle and hand-grenades, appeared before us.
"Unarmt ab we were, we stood stunned watching the soldier, Noticing that he was alone, I, however, quickly leaped upon the soldier and pinned him down.
"Later, we delivered the man ío the commander of the detachment asking him to spare the soldier's life."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.