They helped to construct the boom across the Whangpoo at Shanghai, and the Kiangyin boom in the Yangtze River below Nanking, as well as that at Tienchiacheng below Hankow.
After the fall of Nanking, the communique continues, junks carried supplies and even anti-aircraft guns to pointe further up the river, They also laid water mines.
One hundred boatmen are said to have lost their lives through Japanese aerial bombing before the boom at Tienehiacheng was completed, After the fall of Hankow, the communique concludes, these plucky ontmen took their junks into the Tungting Lake, in Hunan province, where they are continuing to maintain communications between Hunan and Hupeh provinces—Reuter,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.