494.11 China National Aviation Corporation/17

The American Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs (Matsuoka)

No. 1678

Excellency: With reference to my representations of November 5, 1940,31 regarding the attack by Japanese aviation on a China National Aviation Corporation plane near Kunming, Yunnan Province, which resulted in the death of the American pilot, Mr. W. C. Kent, I have the honor to transmit further information regarding this case based upon data which have since come to light.

The plane in question, a commercial passenger plane flying near Kunming, Yunnan Province, landed at Chanyi early in the afternoon of October 29, 1940. Just after it had landed, five Japanese pursuit planes attacked it, opening fire with a 20–millimeter machine gun. The fire from this gun struck the plane and persons inside, and persons fleeing from the plane were machine-gunned; some were killed and injured. The plane bore distinctive markings with one Chinese character YU five feet high and four and a half wide on the left wing, and under the same wing were three letters representing the China National Aviation Corporation identification insignia, each letter being five feet by four and a half in size. Under the right wing were five Chinese characters representing the same Corporation, each five feet by four and a half in dimensions, and on both sides of the fuselage was the Chinese character YU three feet by two in size. The strokes forming the Chinese characters in question were, in every instance except the last, five and a half inches wide. In this connection I may add that [Page 701] this plane is the identical one, the shooting down of which by Japanese aviation on August 24, 1938, formed the subject of my representations to his Excellency General Ugaki on August 26, 1938.32 In repairing it practically no change was made in its appearance, and the markings described above were the same as those which it bore at the time of the previous attack.

The attack upon this plane, resulting in the killing of an American citizen, followed closely upon the reported shooting down at Kunming on October 26 by Japanese military aircraft of a commercial plane of the Eurasia Company, in the course of which it is reported that three civilians were injured.

In representations made by the Embassy regarding the previous attack by Japanese planes, on August 24, 1938, upon a commercial passenger plane belonging to the China National Aviation Corporation, the emphatic objection of the United States Government was expressed to the placing in jeopardy of the lives of American as well as other non-combatant occupants of unarmed civilian planes engaged in established commercial services. The United States Government objects to attack by armed force upon non-combatants and non-combatant enterprises, and has taken due note especially of the killing of an American citizen in the attack on a commercial transport plane operated by a civilian commercial concern, in which there is a substantial American interest, and which is engaged in a legitimate commercial service regularly utilized by American citizens, including officials of the United States Government. In the instant case the attack was made upon a plane which was of a type of civilian transport plane which should be readily recognized by airmen and was easily identifiable as a Douglas DC–2 unpainted dural metal plane. It is not to be conceived that the Japanese air force was ignorant that planes of this type have been flying between Chungking, Kunming, and Hong Kong; that they cannot distinguish between military and civil airplanes; that the Japanese air force was ignorant that such planes are piloted by American pilots, and that they frequently carry American passengers, including American officials. This latest attack upon a civilian commercial passenger plane, in which the life of an American citizen and the lives of several other civilians were sacrificed, brings into strong relief the general jeopardizing of American life and the widespread and unwarranted injury to American interests and property in China which have characterized the activities of the Japanese air force. The Japanese Government will of course realize that incidents of this character, reflecting as they do the apparent attitude of the Japanese military forces toward civilian life, including the lives and property of American [Page 702] citizens and in this case involving loss of American life, constitute serious obstacles in the way of improved American-Japanese relations.

I avail myself [etc.]

Joseph C. Grew
  1. Not printed.
  2. See press release issued by the Department of State on August 26, 1938, p. 619.