USSPanayincident

USSPanayincident
Part of theSecond Sino-Japanese War
USSPanaysinking after Japanese air attack. Nanjing, China.
Date December 12, 1937 Location Yangtze River,offNanjing,China Result USSPanaysunk TheUnited States,theUnited KingdomandFranceprovide loan assistance for war supply contracts toChina
Belligerents
United States	Japan
Commanders and leaders
James J. Hughes	unknown
Strength
1gunboat	13 aircraft
Casualties and losses
1gunboatsunk 3 killed 43 wounded	1 killed
Civilian casualties:2 killed, 5 wounded

TheUSSPanayincidentwas aJapanesebombing attack on theU.S. Navyriver gunboatPanayand threeStandard Oil Companytankers on theYangtze Rivernear the Chinese capital ofNanjingon December 12, 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The boats were part of the American naval operation called theYangtze Patrol,which began following the joint British, French, and American victory inThe Second Opium War.Public reaction was mixed in the U.S., with the president weighing various diplomatic and military responses only to settle for an apology and compensation.The Japanese claimed that they did not see the U.S. flags painted on the deck of the gunboat. Tokyo officially apologized and paid a cash indemnity. The settlement mollified some of the U.S. anger, and newspapers called the matter closed.

Background

A flat-bottomed craft built in Shanghai specifically for river duty,Panayserved as part of the US Navy'sYangtze Patrolin theAsiatic Fleet,which was responsible for patrolling the Yangtze River to protect American lives and property in China.

Afterinvading China in the summer of 1937,Japanese forces moved into Nanjing in December, where they later committedthe massacrein the city that resulted in the deaths of 300,000civiliansandprisoners of war.Panayevacuated the remaining Americans from the city on December 11, bringing the number of people aboard to five officers, 54 enlisted men, four US embassy staff, and 10 civilians, includingUniversal Newsreelcameraman Norman Alley,Fox Movietone Newscameraman Eric Mayell, theNew York Times's Norman Soong,Collier's Weeklycorrespondent Jim Marshall,La Stampacorrespondent Sandro Sandri andCorriere della SeracorrespondentLuigi Barzini Jr.

USSPanayunderway during the standardization trial offWoosung,China, on 30 August 1928.

Incident

A frame from a newsreel which caught a Japanese plane attackingPanayin China

On the morning of the 12th, the Japanese air forces received information that fleeing Chinese forces were in the area in ten large steamers and a large number of junks and that they were between 12 and 25 mi (19 and 40 km) upstream from Nanjing. While anchored upstream from Nanjing,Panayand threeStandard Oiltankers,Mei Ping,Mei An,andMei Hsia,came under attack from Japanese naval aircraft.Panaywas hit by two of the eighteen 132 lb (60 kg) bombs dropped by threeYokosuka B4YType-96 bombers and strafed by nineNakajima A4NType-95 fighters.

According to Lieutenant J.W. Geist, an officer aboardPanay,"the day before we told the Japanese army in the area who we were," and three U.S. flags were plainly visible on the ship. Planes also machine-gunned small boats taking the wounded ashore, and several additional survivors were wounded.The Timescorrespondent Colin MacDonald, who had also been aboardPanay,saw a Japanese army small boat machine-gun thePanayas it was sinking in spite of the American flag painted on the side of the ship. Since Japanese planes continued to circle overhead, survivors cowered knee deep in mud in a swamp.Panay's lifeboats were machine-gunned by Japanese fighter planes in the attack.

As a result of the attack,Panaysank; Storekeeper First Class Charles Lee Ensminger, Standard Oil tanker captain Carl H. Carlson and Italian reporter Sandro Sandri were killed, Coxswain Edgar C. Hulsebus died later that night.43 sailors and five civilians were wounded.

The three Standard Oil tankers were also bombed and destroyed, and the captain ofMei Anand many Chinese civilian passengers were killed. The vessels had been helping to evacuate the families of Standard Oil's employees and agents from Nanjing during theJapanese attack on that city.

Twonewsreelcameramen, Norman Alley ofUniversal Newsreeland Eric Mayell ofFox Movietone News,were aboardPanayduring the attack; they were able to film part of the incident and, after reaching shore, the sinking of the ship in the middle of the river. Survivors were later taken aboard the American vesselOahuand theBritish gunboatsHMSLadybirdandBee.Earlier the same day, a Japanese shore battery had fired onLadybird.

The survivors coped with near freezing nights wearing inadequate clothing along with no food. It took three days to move the sixteen wounded to the safety of several British and American ships.

Diplomacy

The aftermath of thePanaysinking was a nervous time for theAmerican ambassador to Japan,Joseph C. Grew.Grew, whose experience in the foreign service spanned over 30 years, "remembered theMaine,"the U.S. Navy ship that blew up inHavana Harborin 1898. The sinking ofMainehad propelled the U.S. into theSpanish–American Warand ambassador Grew hoped the sinking ofPanaywould not be a similar catalyst for the severance of diplomatic ties and war with Japan.

The Japanese government took full responsibility for sinkingPanaybut continued to maintain that the attack had been unintentional.Chief of Staffof Japanese naval forces in northern China, Vice AdmiralRokuzo Sugiyama,was assigned to make an apology.The formal apology reached Washington, D.C., on Christmas Eve.

Although Japanese officials maintained that their pilots never saw any American flags onPanay,a US Navy court of inquiry determined that several US flags were clearly visible on the vessel during the attacks.At the meeting held at theAmerican embassy in Tokyoon December 23, Japanese officials maintained that one navy airplane had attacked a boat by machine gun for a short period of time and that Japanese army motor boats or launches had been attacking the Chinese steamers escaping upstream on the opposite bank. However, the Japanese navy insisted that the attack had been unintentional. The Japanese government paid an indemnity of $2,214,007.36 to the US on April 22, 1938, officially settling thePanayincident ($47,920,000 in 2024).

Universal Newsreelabout the incident, 12 December 1937.

Post-incident

Donations

Following the incident, Japanese individuals and organizations sent letters of apology and gifts of money to U.S. diplomatic offices and theU.S. Navy Departmentin Washington, D.C. This ranged from letters penned by schoolchildren to organized pools of donors.

The most prominent donor was the America-Japan Society, headed by PrinceTokugawa Iesato,which amassed ¥16,242.56 inPanaycontributions from 7,749 people and 218 organizations.

In response to the donations, Secretary of StateCordell Hullstated that "neither the American Government nor any agency of it nor any of its nationals should receive sums of money thus offered or take direct benefit therefrom." However, Hull noted that since "a flat rejection of such offers would produce some misunderstanding of our general attitude and offend those Japanese who make such a gesture, the Department is of the opinion that some method should be found whereby Japanese who wish to give that type of expression to their feelings may do so."

TheUnited States State Departmentexpressed the desire that any necessary arrangements should be made promptly. Hull did not wish to keep the Japanese people waiting for a decision on what was to become of the money they donated. A prolonged delay could lead to misunderstanding, especially if a decision were reached months later to return the money to the donors.

A temporary solution was reached to allow only the American ambassador in Japan and theAmerican ambassador in Chinato accept donations related to thePanayincident. Several American consulates were receiving money, including consulates atNagoya,Kobe,NagasakiandOsaka,in Japan;Taipei,Taiwan;Keijo(Seoul), Korea;Dairen, Manchuria;andSão Paulo,Brazil. These contributions were eventually forwarded to the ambassador in Tokyo. Grew kept all money received related to thePanayincident in the embassy safe until the State Department could find a solution.

Despite this policy, a local newspaper inNagasaki,theNagasaki Minyu Shimbun,published stories about some Japanese donations to the American consulate in Nagasaki, including an excerpt from a letter attached to a schoolboy's donation. Arthur F. Tower, the American consul in Nagasaki, informed Ambassador Grew of the article, which had been published on January 7. Tower also informed Grew that a reporter of another newspaper—the Tokyo and OsakaAsahi Shimbun,had called on him on 23 December to discuss thePanaycontributions. Towers reassured Grew that "this consulate has not sought to give publicity to the donations received or offered and has furnished information concerning them on two occasions only, when requested." However, the newspaper stories may nonetheless have increased contributions to the location.

A final solution to the donations was reached by creating the Japan-America Trust in the name of thePanaysurvivors and relatives of those who lost their lives. The trust would be used to care for the graves of American sailors buried in Japan, dating back to the graves of sailors involved in thePerry Expeditionin 1853. The formation of the trust allowed the State Department to avoid returning donations or directly distributing them to the U.S. government or individuals. (see alsoForeign cemeteries in Japan)

Awards

Servicemembers aboard thePanaywere awarded theNavy Expeditionary MedalandChina Service Medal.

Fireman First Class John L. Hodge and Lieutenant Clark G. Grazier were presented with theNavy Crossfor their actions during thePanayincident.

The Navy Cross was also presented to two British naval officers, Vice Admiral Lewis Eyre Crabbe and Lieut. Commander Harry Barlow, for their assistance in recovering survivors from the USSPanay.

Fireman First Class John L. Hodge is decorated with theNavy Crossfor bravery displayed during the sinking of the USSPanay

Responsibility for the attack

Modern historians believe that the attack may have been intentional. According to John Prados, Navy cryptographers had intercepted and decrypted traffic relating to the attacking planes which clearly indicated that they were under orders during the attack and that it had not been a mistake of any kind. This information was not released at the time because it would have revealed that the United States had broken Japanese Naval codes.Writer Nick Sparks believes that the chaos in Nanjing created an opportunity for renegade factions within the Japanese army who wanted to force the U.S. into an active conflict so that the Japanese could once and for all drive the U.S. out of China.

Legacy

Grave at Arlington National Cemetery of Fon Huffman

Fon Huffman, the last survivor of the incident, died in 2008.The last surviving Japanese pilot who participated in the attack wasKaname Harada,who died in 2016.

The episode has been cited byPhilip K. Dickin his novelThe Man in the High Castle,depicted in a collectible picture-card of the 1940s, in the seriesHorrors of Warwith the title "The sinking of the Panay."

The incident features in the 2005 novelA Winter in Chinaby the British writerDouglas Galbraith.It is also described in the historical fiction novelPearl HarborbyNewt Gingrichand William R. Forstchen.

The 2009 filmJohn Rabeportrays a fictionalized version of the incident.

See also

• Japan–United States relations

Further reading

• Ashbaugh, William. "Relations with Japan." inA Companion to Franklin D. Roosevelt(2011) pp: 612+.
• LaFeber, Walter.The clash: a history of U.S.-Japan relations(1997) pp 196–198.excerpt
• Konstam, Angus.Yangtze River Gunboats 1900–49(Bloomsbury, 2012).
• Peifer, Douglas Carl. (2016).Choosing war: presidential decisions in the Maine, Lusitania, and Panay incidents.New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190939601online review
• Peifer, Douglas Carl (2018)."Presidential Crisis Decision Making Following the Sinking of the Panay."International Journal of Naval History 14, no. 2/November.
• Perry, Hamilton Darby.The Panay Incident: Prelude to Pearl Harbor(1969).
• Roberts Jr, Frank N. "Climax of Isolationism, Countdown to World War."Naval History26.6 (2012): 32+
• Schnurr, Jeremy. "'The Best Possible Time for War?' The USS Panay and American Far Eastern Policy During the Roosevelt Presidency" (MA thesis. University of Ottawa, 2012)online;bibliography pp 165–72
• Swanson, Harlan J. "The 'Panay' Incident: Prelude To Pearl Harbor."U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings(Dec 1967) 93#12 pp 26–37.
• Tolley, Kemp.Yangtze Patrol: The US Navy in China(Naval Institute Press, 2013).

External links

• Castle Film –Bombing of USS Panay– USSPanaySinking
• The New York Times - Search
• (パネー hào sự kiện と ngày mễ quan hệ ) "ThePanayincident and Japan-US relations ",inUS-Japan War Talks,theJapan Center for Asian Historical RecordsJapan Center for Asian Historical Records(in Japanese)