Faxes Used for Telegrams In Chinese (May, 1945)

TELEGRAMS IN CHINESE are being speeded for wartime communication between four of the most important cities of China by Telefax apparatus built by the Western Union Telegraph Company. Previously, the Chinese system of telegraphing has involved using a code number for each of the 9,000 characters employed in writing. On the receipt of such a telegram, it must be decoded by turning the numbers back into their corresponding characters. Such telegrams occasion delays that hamper the war effort. Since the Telefax apparatus electrically transmits in facsimile whatever is written on paper, there is no loss of time in either sending or reading the message. . At left, a Chinese telegraph employee examines a test message.