"When the plane had pulled out at about 300 feet and stopped firing. Flight-Lieutenant Murray ran for a clump of trees about 40 yards away (and hid-in a ditch once again). The third plane did not appear to dive at all. From the shelter of the trees Flight-Lieutenant Murray saw more than three planes overhead and heard the sound of further diving and machine-gun firing. During this time three machines took part in the diving and low-flying, whilst the three others remained in the neighbourhood but at a higher altitude. Some five to ten minutes later the planes reassembled into formation and lew off in the direction of Shanghai, the three larger hi-planes in formation leading with the three smaller ones following, likewise in formation.
"When it was obvious that the planes were definitely leaving, Flight-Lieutenant Murray left his shelter and returned to the cars. There he found the windows of the door he had left open pierced by a bullet and the marks of many other bullets on the road.
"The two cars which were attacked by aeroplanes had Union Jacks painted prominently on their roofs: the other (the first car which had at the time gone some way ahead) had been furnished with a flag by the Embassy—but—presumably because only one of the four occupants was British—did not have r, it spread on the roof at the time,'
Occupants of Cars The occupants of the first car it was learned yesterday, were as follow:—Mr, Fittinghof, of Bills Motors, Nanking Branch, who drove the car; Mr. M. Brayham, British, who is attached to the Chinese Railway Administration; Lieut, Francesco Ribezzi, of the Royal Italian Navy; and Mr, Stacey Way, said to be a Chinese reporter.
In the second car were Captain W. L. Shinn, of the China Navigation Ca, and Mr. C. C. Marshall, of the International Import and Export Ca, who took turns at driving. H The occupants of the third car were Flight-Lieutenant 5. S. Murray, Assist: ant Air Attache to the British Embassy, Mr. M. Shahov, who is attached to the Soviet Embassy, and two Chinese drivers, one of whom was the driver of the car in which the British Ambassador was shot on the Nanking Shanghai Highway.
Mr. T. Kawai, Japanese Consul-General in Shanghai, yesterday called on Mr. Herbert Phillips, H.M. Copsul-General, to express his regret at the incident. An investigation of the two cars which were in the rear of the party was also made to ascertain if they were quite clearly discernible, or if they might be covered with dust, or otherwise made difficult to see from the air. It was found that the British flags on the roofs of the two cars were quite clearly visible.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.