The Bismarck Tribune

Jap Planes Riddle Three British Cars

(By the Associated Press)

Three automobiles belonging to the British embassy at Shanghai were machine-gunned Tuesday by two squadrons of Japanese warplanes.

None of the occupants was injured.

The staff cars in which S. S. Murray, the assistant air attache of the British embassy was riding with several other Englishmen, were attacked by the raiding Japanese planes near Minhong, 14 miles south of Shanghai, about 4 p. m.

Although the three motor cars carried the Union Jack, the British officials said, the Japanese warplanes continued their machine gunning after the occupants jumped from the machines and sought cover.

The British asserted the cars could have been identified easily and added there was no doubt that the attacking planes were Japanese.

British sources received the news of the episode with the gravest concern in view of the previous attack on Sir Hughe Knatchbull-Hugessen, the ambassador.

While the Japanese army launched a heavy aerial bombardment on the strongly-held Chinese Chapei sector on the northern fringe of the International settlement, a spokesman said that, weather permitting, the long over due Japanese big push would get under way in the immediate future.

The duel between the giant Japanese bombers and the Chinese anti-aircraft guns, newly emplaced in Chapei, re-exposed the foreign areas to heightened dangers.

The Chinese and Japanese troops in the Shanghai sector were playing a grim game of hide-and-seek with each trying to outflank the other.

The see-sawing engagements stretched from Chapei for 25 miles along the northwestern battle front to Lotien.