793.94/2033: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Chargé in Japan (Neville)
194. Your 180, October 10, 6 p.m. You will thank the Minister for Foreign Affairs for his reply to my questions. You will say to him in respect to his answer to the second question.
“The Secretary of State cannot understand how the bombing of Chinchow can be minimized or how it can be said to be of no importance. The explanation given by the Japanese Military authorities [Page 21] seems quite inadequate. Chinchow is more than 50 miles from the Japanese Railway Zone and is situated in territory where the Chinese have an entire right to maintain troops. The Secretary of State is at a loss to see what right Japanese military planes had to fly over the town, thereby provoking attack, and to drop bombs. Casualties among civilians have been asserted by the Chinese to have taken place. Bombing of an unfortified and unwarned town is one of the most extreme of military actions, deprecated even in time of war. The Japanese military authorities are quoted in usually reliable press sources as asserting that this attack on Chinchow was intended to prevent Marshal Chang from establishing his new capital at that place and resuming his authority in Manchuria.
Both of the foregoing reasons given in explanation of this attack would appear quite at variance with the commitments undertaken by the Japanese Government in respect to the resolution of September 30th of the Council of the League of Nations.
The Secretary of State is thus constrained to regard the bombing of Chinchow as of very serious importance and he would welcome any further information from the Minister for Foreign Affairs which would throw light on it.”
You may leave a memorandum of this statement with the Minister for Foreign Affairs.