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 ...

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...