393.115 China National Aviation Company/23, 24: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 26—9:31 a.m.]
559. Department’s 298, August 25, 5 p.m., was received and decoded at 3:30 p.m. and an appointment with the Foreign Minister was immediately requested but as he could not receive me today I called on the Vice Minister at 5:30 and read to him and left with him the following note addressed to the Minister for Foreign Affairs:
[Here follows text of note, which is contained in press release issued by the Department, August 26, 1938, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, volume I, page 619.]
The Vice Minister, after listening to my representations, read to me the provisional report received by the Foreign Office from the naval authorities. This report states that in the absence of any established law governing aviation the Japanese Air Forces since the commencement of the China incident have been operated generally in accord with the draft convention submitted to the International Conference at The Hague in 1923, articles 33 and 34 of the draft convention72 explicitly providing, the report states, that commercial planes entering a zone of hostilities are liable to attack. The report points out the difficulty of distinguishing civil from military planes which may be reconnoitering in the guise of passenger planes and which therefore cannot claim immunity on that ground.
With specific regard to the incident under reference, the Japanese naval report states that on account of the “suspicious behavior” of the Chinese plane the Japanese planes pursued. They hold the Chinese plane responsible for the incident and allege that no distinguishing marks were visible. The report says that the Canton-Hankow Railway is being attacked daily and that this fact alone should have caused the Chinese plane to know that it is flying in a zone of military operations. The report implies that the commercial plane was not forced down but landed in the river and that the Japanese pursuit plane “left without firing.”
The Vice Minister acknowledged the wide discrepancy between the Japanese naval report and the report of pilot Wood and said that further investigation would be made and a reply to our note delivered as soon as possible. I replied that there seemed to me to be no doubt whatsoever but that the concrete evidence would disprove the Japanese naval report. I emphasized several times in our talk the [Page 456] unfortunate effect of the incident on American public opinion and urged a prompt reply.
Repeated to Hong Kong for Chungking.
- Part II, Rules of Aerial Warfare, Foreign Relations, 1923, vol. i, pp. 73, 80.↩