Hankow, July 23.
IHE Chinese authorities are making every effort to provide transportation facilities for the evacuation of women and children from the Hankow area.
The Ministry of Communications, besides running extra trains, is a! teaching extra coaches to regular trains proceeding from Wuchang and Changsha for the benefit of passengers bound for the south.
At the same time, special trains are being run for wounded. soldiers and refugees. Steamship lines operating between Banke and Changsha and between Hankow, Ichang and Chungking, have been ordered to make extra runs to accommodate the large number of refugees.
The populace have been urged by the Garrison Headquarters to evacuate the Hankow area by junks, rickshaws, horse carriages and also by foot.—Reuter.
A Japanese Air Base in Central China, July 23—For the first time since the commencement of Sino-Japanese hostilities Japanese military planes consisting of four squadrons raided the Nanchang aerodrome in Kiangsi province at 330 o'clock this afternoon.
Braving intense anti-aircraft fire, the military planes flew as low as 80 metres and strafed military establishments, No Chinese planes were seen on the ground but eleven wooden my crat, fashioned after 6B bombers, 1-16 and 1-15 models were seen, Japanese air force officers de-
O'clock yesterday morning inflicted heavy damage on hangars and military establishments, they claimed. No Chinese planes were seen on the ground, indicating that all the planes had been removed to unknown places beforehand.
According to a reliable report received here, the Chinese air force command ordered pilots not to fill the gasoline tanks of grounded planes being repaired, due to fears that serious damage would be done to them by Japanese attacks. Anyone disobeying the order will be severely punished, the report said. The orders were sent to aerodromes in Hankow, Sinyang, Lanchow and elsewhere.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.