NSIDERABLE tension prevailed for a number of hours yesterday afternoon and evening when a wiring party consisting of four Seaforth Highlanders and their truck were surrounded by Japanese blue-jackets and were prevented from returning to North Kiangse Road from the alleyway in which they had been replacing existing barbed wire barricades. They were detained at 3.45 p.m. and were only released some three hours later. The Japanese meanwhile pushed away the. barricades erected on the East side of N. Kiangse Road by the British forces in 1937 and replaced them with their own, also closing off "Moy Hall" where the platoon having duty at the corner of N. Kiangse and Range Road stayed and which had to be evacuated by the Seaforths.
Later in the evening, however, British soldiers cut through the Japanese erected barricade and took possession of their little house, whilst all Japanese sentries had been withdrawn.
Soon after the arrest of the wiring party 250 Japanese blue-jackets arrived 250 Japanese blue-jackets arrived on the scene with poles and rolls of barbed wire. Under the protection of sentries posted in the middle of N. Kiangse Road which is actualy within the British defence sector, crews engaged in erecting barbed wire barricades on the Fast side of the street, whilst Seaforth Highlanders, of whom only a' very small number were seen by a reporter who arrived at the spot a few minutes later, were standing on the west side of Boone Road watching developments; Chinese living East of N. Kiangse Road however. grew panicky with the result that that thoroughfare as well as all adjoining streets were made unpassable by mountains of meager belongings, with more furniture, bedding and. other objects arriving every minute.
The whole trouble started when a wiring party of Seaforths were engaged in replacing deteriorated barbed wire barricades which had been erected in alleyways off North Kiangse Road, actually within the Japanese defence sector during the 1937 hostilities, They were surrounded by Japanese blue-jackets and were not permitted to regain their sector, being detained, until 7 p.m.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.