USS Panay (PG 45), standardization trial, 17.73 knots, off Woosung, China, August 30, 1928. (Bureau of Ships photograph in the U.S. National Archives 19-LC-14-41) The second USS Panay (PR–5) of the United States Navy was a Panay-class river gunboat that served on the Yangtze Patrol in China until being sunk by Japanese aircraft on 12 December 1937 on the Yangtze River. The vessel was built by Jiangnan Dockyard and Engineering Works, Shanghai, China, and launched on 10 November 1927. She was sponsored by Mrs. Ellis S. Stone and commissioned on 10 September 1928. History Built for duty in the Asiatic Fleet on the Yangtze River, Panay had as her primary mission the protection of American lives and property frequently threatened in the disturbances that the 1920s and 1930s brought to a China struggling to modernize, create a strong central government, and later counter Japanese aggression. Throughout Panay’s service, navigation on the Yangtze was constantly menaced by bandits...