World War 2 In Review

The Commander in Chief of the United States Asiatic Fleet (Yarnell) to the Secretary of the Navy (Swanson) December 23, 1937 [Received 1:15 a.m.] The following are finding[s] of facts of the Court of Inquiry ordered to investigate the bombing and sinking of the U.S.S. Panay. The Court was composed of Captain H. V. McKittrick, Commander M. L. Deyo, Lieutenant Commander A. C. J. Sabalot, members, and Lieutenant C. J. Whiting, Judge Advocate. The findings are approved. The record of the Court will be forwarded to the Department by airmail leaving Manila about 29 December. The Court finds as follows: (1) That on December 12, 1937, the U.S.S. Panay, a unit of the Yangtze Patrol of the United States Asiatic Fleet, was operating under lawful orders on the Yangtze River. (2) That the immediate mission of the U.S.S. Panay was to protect nationals, maintain communication between the United States Embassy, Nanking, and office [of] the Ambassador at Hankow, provide a temporary ...

Summary of Events at Nanking Between November 21 and December 10, 1937 Nanking, December 10, 1937 On November 21, 1937, the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs at Nanking asked the American Ambassador to inform the latter’s colleagues of the Minister’s imminent departure from Nanking and of his desire that the foreign Chiefs of Mission leave Nanking as soon as possible. The American Ambassador communicated this information to his colleagues and it was agreed by the Chiefs of Mission that they would leave as nearly together as possible for Hankow at which place the Chinese Foreign Office would be established. On November 22, the various foreign Ambassadors and Ministers, together with some of their nationals, boarded vessels to depart for Hankow, the American Ambassador with part of his staff boarding the U.S.S. Luzon, flagship of the Yangtze Patrol of the United States Asiatic Fleet. Part of the staff of the American Embassy was left in Nanking to keep the Embassy functionin...

by Trevor K. Plante Published in Prologue, Summer 2001, Vol. 33, No. 2 Four years before Pearl Harbor, the United States and Japan were involved in an incident that could have led to war between the two nations. On December 12, 1937, the American navy gunboat Panay was bombed and sunk by Japanese aircraft. A flat-bottomed craft built in Shanghai specifically for river duty, USS Panay served as part of the U.S. Navy's Yangtze Patrol in the Asiatic Fleet, which was responsible for patrolling the Yangtze River to protect American lives and property. After invading China in the summer of 1937, Japanese forces moved on the city of Nanking in December. Panay evacuated the remaining Americans from the city on December 11, bringing the number of people on board to five officers, fifty-four enlisted men, four U.S. embassy staff, and ten civilians. The following day, while upstream from Nanking, Panay and three Standard Oil tankers, Mei Ping, Mei An, and Mei Hsia, came under attack f...