(6 of 7)
First Aces? Not spared the war was Capital Nanking, 170 mi. away, but repeated Japanese bombing raids caused little damage. Here at least U. S. observers credited China with definite air superiority, and General Mao Peng-tsou, field commander of the air force, gave to the world the names of China's first air heroes: Lieutenant Loi Chong, 23, credited with shooting down four Japanese light bombers in one morning; Lieutenant Wong Sun-sui, age unknown, credited with shooting down two twin-motored bombers near Nanking. Both men were trained in the U. S., used U. S.-built planes. Said Lieutenant Wong: ''American-made pursuit planes can easily outrun Japanese bombers. Shooting them down is comparatively easy because Japanese pilots seem to be mesmerized as soon as they find an attacking plane behind them." Added General Mao:
"We believe most of these destroyed planes belong to an air unit normally stationed near Tokyo. It had originally 52 heavy bombers made of German metal, equipped with American 14-cylinder engines, British machine guns and Japanese radio. . . . We believe the unit has lost half its planes."
Weak Yen. Fortnight ago, Japanese Government bonds were quoted. at 90. Last week they had dropped to 76 and the yen was in a precarious position. Pessimists insisted that Japan had funds for only three months of warfare, must collapse financially after that period. Realists pointed that bankruptcy seldom stops wars, but pointed out too that China's finances, almost as precarious, have been in general improving as Japan's declined. Busily touring Europe recently, drumming up loans has been rotund Dr. H. H. Kung, China's Minister of Finance. Loans he got, both in Switzerland, The Netherlands and Britain but just how much no one could say. They were enough at least for him to visit Vienna where he trotted about happily in a green Tyrolean hat complete with feather, placing munitions orders. From Vienna he retired to famed Bad Nauheim to rest. But there was no rest for Japanese financiers. Last week they were desperately ordering from abroad not scrap iron but finished steel (more quickly convertible into war materials) and to pay for it they were already beginning to ship abroad quantities of Japan's small store of gold. Internally the Government launched 200,000,000 yen of deficit bonds, announced it would be necessary "to readjust [private] investment capital," presumably a euphemism for a capital levy. The Knife of War was about to slit China's throat but it was also about to slit Japan's purse.
"Object Sublime." British business, with over $1,000,000,000 invested in Chinese property, and British sentimentalists for once united in their backing of the underdog in a modern war last week. Lightest touch was delivered by Cartoonist Orr in the Glasgow Daily Record. Referring to numerous statements in the Japanese press that the time had come for China to be "punished," he drew a scene from Gilbert & Sullivan's Mikado showing a wretched Chinese coolie, head on block before the Lord High Executioner, while beside him the spectacled Mikado, finger a-wag sings:
My object all sublime
Has changed in course of time;
The punishment now precedes the crime;
It now precedes the crime.