The Japanese planes came in successive waves, first three, then five, seven and eight planes, and as they passed the aerodrome they distributed bombs.
As soon as the alarm was sounded, a wild scramble for safety started, Thousands fought their way through crowds towards dugouts, cellars and warehouses.
Fifteen minutes after the alarm was given, Hankow was like a city of the dead. Not a sound was heard anywhere, Then in the distance came the drone of aeroplanes, which became louder as they approached, Suddenly bursts of anti-airerátt fire were heard, and Reuter's correspondent, looking upward, saw five planes emerge in line from the white clouds half filling the sky.
For fully fifteen minutes the city was shaken by the rattle of antiaircraft fire as the Chinese batteries blazed, specks of smoke dotting the sky as the shells exploded, "The fire got nearer and nearer the mark, but the visitors flew at a height which ex-Servicemen—here estimated to be at least 8,000 feet.
Hardly had the first group of planes loosed their bombs and disappeared, when the same drone was heard again, and another batch emerged from the clouds. As the newcomers were over the aerodrome, eight more planes broke through white clouds from the north, The most ear-splitting din of antiaircraft guns ever heard in Hankow greeted the flight of the planes over the foreign areas towards the aerodrome, A Reuter correspondent was watching the raid from an open space in the heart of the city when shell splinter three inches long struck the (Continued en page 8)
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.