394.115 Panay/371
The Navy Department to the Department of State
[Received December 20, 1937.]
The following information has been received from the Commander-in-Chief Asiatic Fleet under date of 19 December, 1937, and was sent to the Commander Yangtze Patrol to inform our Ambassador to China:
According to a report given to Beatty of United Press by Horigu Chinese Domei agency Shanghai it is claimed that naval aviators were ordered by the army to bomb all ships on the river between Wuhu and Nanking. This report was given in confidence but was not verified. It is further claimed that the naval commander protested against this order but the order was carried out after being repeated by army officials. The navy is now trying to make the army publicly admit that they issued the bombing orders, but so far the army has refused to do so because of the opposition of the younger officers to such admission.
Admiral Hasegawa called today and made the following statements: (1) that planes were acting under army orders. (2) that, though previously denied, one of the aviators had admitted that he fired machine gun. (3) because of the fact that communications with the advanced forces were poor, he has had much trouble getting reports from the army officials.
The Japanese naval air force used eight hundred planes in making fifty bombing attacks on Nanking according to Reuter Tokyo. During all of these bombings gunboats of Great Britain and the United States were there and after that number of bombings must have been familiar to Japanese aviators from the air. This makes recognition of Panay as American gunboat most probable by bombers, who nevertheless proceeded to carry out orders received from the army. Among the Japanese bombers who attacked the Panay were two officers who undoubtedly had a part in the bombings at Nanking. One is a Lieut. Comdr. and the other a Lieutenant.