793.94/10188: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Gauss) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:55 p.m.]
739. Reference my No. 711, September 15, 2 p.m. and No. 731, September 20, 11 a.m. following is pertinent portion of reply of Mayor of Greater Shanghai, dated September 20:
“With Japan making use of the International Settlement and the heart of the Whangpoo River as the bases of her aggressive operations against China, the Chinese Air Force has been compelled to take defensive measures in our own aerial domain. This, the Chinese authorities are confident, should receive the sympathetic consideration of the friendly powers. The Chinese authorities also regard it as most deplorable that Chinese and foreign lives and properties in the International Settlement and the French Concession should have been thus endangered, and with a view to ensuring security to those areas, the military authorities have already issued strict orders to the Air Force as well as to other forces that care be taken to avoid, whenever possible, such action as may cause danger to the non-combatants in the Settlement and the Concession.
As the fundamental cause of the danger to the non-combatants in the Settlement and the Concession lies in fact that the Japanese forces are making use of the Settlement as the base of their hostile operations, I have the honor to request that the American, British, French, Italian, and Netherlands naval authorities will, in the interest of the areas involved, take such steps as will remove the fundamental cause of danger.”
Sent to Department. Repeated to Nanking and Tokyo.