Office of the Historian

793.94/10189: Telegram

The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State

Tokyo, September 22, 1937—7 p.m.
[Received September 22—8:40 a.m.]

404. Colonel Crane,43 Military Attaché, has submitted to me the following memorandum dated today.

“Memorandum for the Ambassador.

1.
At the request of an officer in the War Department who has acted frequently as an official liaison officer with this office, I called at the War Department this morning and was told the following informally:
(a)
The Japanese Army appreciates deeply the strictly neutral attitude maintained by the United States Government toward the ‘China incident’.
(b)
Intelligence has been received by the Japanese Army that China plans to take advantage of the confusion incident to Japanese bombing of Nanking to have its own planes bomb foreign Embassies and Legations there and credit the attacks to Japan. My informant urged that planes attacking such Embassies and Legations be observed carefully to determine their nationality so that Japan would not be accused unjustly as in the case of the recent firing on the British Ambassador.
(c)
United States military observers with Japanese forces in China will be welcome if arranged for through this Embassy.
2.
My informant ended the interview as soon as he had delivered the above message without the customary discussion of the progress of events in China.”

Repeated to Shanghai for Nanking.

Grew
  1. Lt. Col. William C. Crane.↩