The Daily Alaska empire., 1933-01-27
China to Dispute Air Supremacy; Ne,v Air
 Corps Reported Making Rapid Strides Nolu

HANGCHOW, China, Jan. 27.- Rapid strides are being made here in China's effort to build nili- tary air corps as 8 guard against repetition of enemy attacks upon her towns and countrysidc
 Back of high barbed w1re fence the China Aviation Institute, with the help of American civil fliers, is training pilots fer the Ranking government. General Huan Pin Heng, who learned to fly in the United States, is commander Of the air force
 Soong Founder Of Corps
 That the hoped for corps is to be used also for civilian purposes is included in the program Of the school, but it is an open secret that the chief object is military.
 T. V. Soong, minister of finance and brother-in- of Chiang- Kali Shek, executive head of the Nan king regime, is credited with hav- ing caused the school to be es- abolished. It was in his privately owned plane that Christy Mathew son, Jr., one of the American in- structors here, had tragic crash at Shanghai.
 It is said that as Dr. Soong watched Japanese flyers swarm over Shanghai last February, deal ing death and destruction to the Chinese defenders of Chapel, he decided China was to have an air corps.
 Cadets Apt Pupils
 Soong, graduate of Harvard supplies the money for the Hang chow school. He hired sixteen American pilots and mechanics as instructors and sees to it that the most likely candidates among the Chinese would-be flyers are cent there.
 The American instructors whom scong hired come from all parts of the United States. The head of the group is John H. Jonett of San Francisco. He saw service in France, but resigned from the army in 193O to become a con- mercial aviator. Several of his assistants have similar records.
 The group lost no time in get ting under way. Within the short time they have been in China they have gotten shaken down in Hangchow. Ground instruction was under way while construction of school buildings, hangars and avia- ton field was going on.
 These instructors have been hired for several years. The money for them and for the school is said to have been ear-marked be- yond recall. Chinese would-be flyers are reported plentiful and are said to be apt pupils.
 The undertaking has caused Jap- ansse military men to turn sharp attention toward this city, 100 miles southwest of Shanghai. But there is the barbed wire fence that prevents outsiders from con- ing near the institute grounds.
 No institute officials will talk about the school, and the same atmosphere prevails among Chin- csc officials at Nanking.
 Money is being poured into the undertaking. Military ships of various types are being added to the American training planes al- ready in use.
 Among these latter are 35 Amer ican bombers, representing an in- vestment of $1,000,000. Larger and heavier machines, it is understood, are soon to be bought in the United States.
 Twenty Italian heavy bombing ships are also said to have been contracted for. They are report cd to have been purchased with S750,0O0 returned boxer indemnity funds.
 Besides all these the rural folks of Honan Province recently pre- sented three British pursuit planes to the Nanking government.