393.1115/1123: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 4:25 p.m.]
708. I desire to point out to the Department with reference to the question of those American citizens still remaining in China, either because they have not had time to get to concentration points such as [Page 354] Tsingtao, Hankow or Canton, or because they have not chosen to comply with repeated warnings from the several Consulates, that the possibility of evacuating these Americans from China at the present time grows rapidly more difficult. The Tsinpu Railway as far south as Hsuchowfu is subject to attacks from the air. The Lunghai Railway is similarly dangerous, the port of Haichow being now closed and having already been bombed. The road from here to Shanghai is too dangerous. The railway from Hankow to Canton is liable to attack. The railway between Peiping and Hankow has been attacked several times. The question arises as to whether the Consulates should continue to advise Americans to leave their present places of comparative safety for places the safety of which we are not certain and over transportation routes which we believe to be increasingly unsafe. The situation is further complicated by the fact that there is no accommodation for such refugees in Hong Kong or Manila and transportation from those places to the United States is so irregular that it is practically impossible for us here in the field to know what to advise evacuees to do. I wonder therefore whether the time may not have arrived when the Department may wish to reexamine its instructions on the subject of evacuation of American citizens from China in the light of the above and perhaps modify them in some respects. The general tone is we are still advising all Americans to leave but we are doubtful as to what advice to give them as to routes or destination.