"By Mistake"

One morning last week, Pilot Hugh L. Woods of McCracken, Kans. raised a big Douglas transport plane off the airfield at Hong Kong. He had 13 Chinese passengers, including two women, a young child and a baby. Half-hour later, as the liner scudded over swampy Chinese delta lands, eleven Japanese planes came tearing in from the direction of the Ladrone Islands, and Pilot Woods promptly ducked into a cloud. When he reached the end of it, five Japanese planes were on his tail, power diving at the Douglas to force it down. "Japanese planes chasing us," radioed Pilot Woods, then three minutes later: "Forced land river: all safe."

Pilot Woods calculated his landing perfectly. The only thing he did not calculate correctly was the intention of the Japanese. The Japanese dived again & again, spraying the downed plane with machine-gun bullets. The transport's crew and passengers went overboard into the river and the Japanese planes fired on them in the water, continuing the work of extermination. Pilot Woods was carried away by a swift current and reached shore in safety. Radio Operator Joe Loh and a passenger, Chinese Civil Servant C. N. Lou, with a bullet in his neck, also escaped. Two days later, while the British gunboat Cicala stood by, Chinese extricated three bullet-riddled bodies from the transport, sunk in 40 feet of water. Among the missing were President Hsu Sing-loh of the National Commercial Savings Bank and General Manager Hu Pei-kong of the Bank of Communications.

The reason for the attack was soon deduced. Dr. Sun Fo, son of the late great Chinese Revolutionist Sun Yatsen, had recently visited Russia and toured European capitals seeking aid for the Chinese Government. Arriving in Hong Kong, he and his party booked passage with China National Aviation Corp. from Hong Kong to Chungking, China's temporary capital. Japanese spies evidently informed the Japanese Air Force that an easy job of assassination could be carried out.

Unfortunately for the Japanese, Dr. Sun did not fly in Pilot Woods's plane. Instead he shifted his reservation to Eurasia Aviation Corp. (45% German-owned) and flew in safety to Hankow, the Chinese capital against which Japan's forces uneventfully continued their offensive (TIME, May 9, et seq.).

The Japanese at once announced that the Douglas was shot down "by mistake," so a Japanese Army spokesman at Shanghai was asked by correspondents what transport planes in China could do to keep from being "mistakenly attacked" in future. Said he sagely: "The best thing they can do is not to be in the air!" Later the spokesman gave the part-German Eurasia line on which Dr. Sun flew safely last week priceless advertising by implying that its planes will continue immune. At once China National Aviation Corp. canceled all flights. Its officials said it might resume business with departures at "secret hours" if customers wanted to buy tickets on that basis.

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