393.1115/347: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 28—7:30 a.m.]
587. With reference to incident involving British Ambassador,84 I informed Japanese Consul General yesterday that a number of Americans in the interior in removing from places of danger must use their motor cars and that operations by Japanese Air Force to bomb and machine gun motor cars, not part of military columns or trains, is likely to endanger safety our nationals, it being impossible for [Page 292] us to know in advance of their movements or to direct their safe passage.
2. I am endeavoring to warn Americans in interior in travelling by motor car to follow routes removed from areas of military operations, to avoid military columns and formations, to fly the flag and also place flag horizontally on top of car.
Sent to the Department. Repeated to Nanking and Tokyo.
- See telegram No. 327, August 29, 9 p.m., from the Ambassador in Japan, vol. iii, p. 494.↩