effected in Shanghaigsi far the. most important assassination on patriotic grounds ince the 1937 hostilities was carried out on Sunday evening when Mr. Chen Loh, Foreign Minister of the "Reformed Government" afd a former Chinese Minister to France, was riddled with Wets in his residence, No. 25, Lane 668 Vu Yuen Road, in territory under Japanese control.
The "China New Year" assassination, which was apparently executed according to carefully laid plans, was performed at about 7 o'clock by a large gang of alleged political agents who acted with speed and precision and escaped easily despite the presence of a number of Mr. Chen's bodyguards.
Two of the latter disappeared with the assassins.
Some fifteen men were in the group at went to Mr. Chen's residence, ized and disarmed the watchman at the front gate and then went to the rear door, About half of these men entered the house and walked to the dining-room on the ground floor where Mr. Chen was sitting with members of his family and one or two guests. They pointed pistols at the "Reformed Government" official and fired a number of times. One of the bullets went through his head and another penetrated his right leg. He slumped back on the sofa where he was seated and died almost instantly.
"AMI Finished!"
The intruders did not leave immediately but stayed in the rooms on the ground floor for several minutes. Before they departed, in a body, one of them exclaimed in the Northern dialect of Chinese: "It is all finished!" Then they marched out, nonchalantly They found no difficulty in escaping into Japanese-controlled territory. As soon as they were gone the terrified relatives of Mr. Chen telephoned for a Shanghai Fire Brigade ambulance. He was taken to the Chinese Red Cross Hospital in Avenue Hzig but was dead when admitted, Two of the armed men attached to the late official's household were not to be found after the shooting, and it was believed they had left with the gang, either willingly or under threat.
The pistols used by the intruders were of 32 and 38 calibre. It was later determined by arms experts that one of the weapons, a.38, had been responsible for the assassination of Mr. Chien Hua on February 8. Mr. Chien, who was a sub-editor of the Chinese daily "Shun Po" and member of the Japanese newspaper censorship board, was shot in Race Course Road, near Vu Ya Ching Road, in broad daylight while he was ríding in a rickshaw en route to the "Shun Pao" offices.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.