Office of the Historian

793.94/9363: Telegram

The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State

Nanking, August 14, 1937—noon.
[Received August 14—3 a.m.]

428. Your [Shanghai’s] 474, August 13, 10 p.m., last sentence. For the strictly confidential information of yourself and the Commander in Chief.1

General Chiang has sent me word very confidentially that he feels great anxiety over the presence of Japanese naval vessels at Shanghai in close proximity to the Settlement and to foreign naval vessels. The Chinese may be obliged to attack the Japanese vessels from the air and the anxiety of General Chiang would be relieved in part if foreign vessels could moor at some distance from the Japanese ships. For some reason the Chinese authorities expect intensive Japanese action August 15.

Sent to Shanghai.

Johnson
  1. Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, U. S. Asiatic Fleet.↩