793.94/10325: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
Nanking, September 29, 1937—2
p.m.
[Received 5:52 p.m.]
[Received 5:52 p.m.]
737. Department’s 269, September 27, 7 p.m.59
- 1.
- So far as we know the only establishments at Nanking which could be considered with propriety to be bases for military operations are establishments such as the military airfield, arsenal and barracks outside the walls. The term military establishment can not with any legal or moral propriety be applied to such establishments as the Central University, the Central Hospital, the Ministry of Health, the Legislative Yuan, Ministry of Finance, National Minister of Police Council,60 Ministry of Education and the electric light plant all of which have apparently been the targets of Japanese bombers and some of which have been hit and damaged by bombs. (The Central University has been bombed three times.)
- 2.
- In addition to and exclusive of these considerations the question of the bombing of Nanking resolves itself into the question of the propriety, moral or legal, of bombing the capital of a country against which the attackers’ Government has not declared war and with which that Government maintains diplomatic relations through the Chinese Ambassador in Tokyo and in theory at least through the Japanese Ambassador now at Shanghai. In these circumstances the Japanese bombing of Nanking has no more legal than moral justification.
- 3.
- Incidentally, only the most negligible military purpose has been served by the numerous raids on Nanking officially counted as 46 including raids which were frustrated. Three [sic] military planes have been destroyed here, three or four have been brought down in air combat, damage has been done to a small building on the military airfield and a hangar, a workshop in the arsenal, and a section of the compound wall of the Central Military Academy. According to Chinese official sources, the aerial warfare inland and at Shanghai [Page 557] resulted by the end of August in the loss of 60 Japanese planes as against 30 Chinese losses of which 20 were irreparable and Japanese losses included 26 of the 52 heavy bombers which were based on Formosa and which made first attacks upon this city and Hankow.
The Embassy feels strongly that the diplomatic representatives of countries which are in no way parties to the present conflict have a right to conduct relations with the Chinese Government undisturbed and certainly without being subjected to a [fall of bombs?] which in some instances have fallen within one-and-a-half yards of their official residences.
Sent to the Department. Repeated to Tokyo, Peiping.
Johnson