Hongkong, May 21, Japanese warplanes yesterday forced down and machine-gunned a enger plane of the China Nanal Aviation Corporation, near Suifu on the Yangtze river west of Chungking, reliable sources here said today.
Three Americans ju the plane, Pilot H. L, Woods, veteran China fiier and native of Winfield, Kansas and Dr. and Mrs, Robert Ellsworth Brown, of Ann Arbor, Michigan, well known China medical missionaries, escaped unharmed, The plane was en route from Chungking to Chengtu where Dr. Brown was to assume his duties as superintendent of the University Hospital and Mrs. Brown was to act as chief of the nursing staff. The Browns recently returned to China he Unit passenger plane to land, then machine-gunned it, severely damaging the wings.
It was Pilot Woods' second narrow escape from death or serious injury. On August 24, 1938 a plane he was piloting was shot down by Japanese warplanes on the China coast near Macao, Fifteen of the 19 persons aboard were killed, Pilot Woods and four others swam ashore, Pilot Woods is well known in Shanghai.
Dr, and Mrs, Brown, who have served many years in China, recently returned to take charge of the University Hospital which is financed by the Associated Board of Christian Colleges, with headquarters in New York City.
A Japanese communique issued here announcing Japanese naval plane raids on Ipin said that "one large plane was demolished on the
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