393.1115/3173: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Lockhart) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:15 p.m.]
658. The Japanese Minister, Mr. Tani, through the Japanese Consul General at Shanghai has communicated to all diplomatic and consular officers at Shanghai in writing a notice that with the development of military operations in Kiangsu, Anhwei, and Honan south of the Yellow River and especially along the Lunghai–Tsinpu and Peiping–Hankow Railways it is the earnest wish of the Japanese military forces that all foreign nationals in those areas immediately evacuate to safer places “in order to avoid possible dangers to their lives and property from aerial bombing and land fighting.” Mr. Tani’s letter states that in case foreign nationals take refuge in areas under Japanese control the contact will accord them as much protection as possible. It is essential that the foregoing information be brought to the notice of American citizens in the areas described.
I propose to acknowledge the receipt of the notice in substantially the same sense of the penultimate paragraph of the Department’s telegram No. 63, February 18, 5 p.m. in reply to Tokyo’s 108, February 16, 7 p.m.12
Repeated to Hankow and Peiping.
- Neither printed, but see note of February 21, from the American Ambassador in Japan to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 586.↩