793.94/1896: Telegram
The Minister in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 26—10:35 a.m.]
668. J. D. Thomson, manager and chief accountant of the Peiping-Mukden Railway, reports that he and his family and two foreign women, one Italian and one German, left Huangkutung on Thursday morning of the 24th and that a few kilometers west of Huangkutung saw a Japanese aeroplane overhead and heard rattling which he did not associate with aeroplane at the time. At the next station two passengers were reported dead, one of whom he saw. Marks of bullets on train show that they had been fired from above, presumably from Japanese aeroplane. Train was unarmed and filled with passengers and refugees at the time.