393.1123/24: Telegram
The Vice Consul at Tsinan (Hawthorne) to the Secretary of State
[Received October 31—1:03 p.m.]
Mr. B. T. Bard, an American citizen and superintendent of the North China District Council of the Assemblies of God with residence at Peiping, was assaulted by a Japanese soldier at Putsih near Chowtsun on Sunday afternoon October 27. As he was accompanying Miss Ingeborg Gustavson, an American citizen, to the railroad [Page 907] station, a Japanese soldier in the roadway began to hit a Chinese member [of] the mission who was carrying Miss Gustavson’s suitcase. Bard then took the suitcase from the Chinese and walked to the church compound. The Japanese soldier followed him there and at the gate struck him once in the face with his fist. Bard and Miss Gustavson walked on rapidly to the railway station where the soldier followed them and inside the station he again assaulted Bard by hitting him twice in the face with his fists. Bard thought it best to return to the mission living quarters but outside the railway station the soldier caught up with him, tripped him with his foot and pushed him to the ground. Bard then walked away to the mission and he was not molested further. He did not at any time resort to a physical self defense. He still retains a slight bruise visible under the right eye but he suffered no other physical injury.
At the mission’s new church compound (separated from the mission’s living quarters) Chinese policemen were posted on Sunday afternoon after the incident and no one was allowed to enter or leave. About 100 Chinese Christians were thus forced to spend the night inside the church and they were not able to leave until Monday afternoon when without explanation the police were withdrawn. Bard reported the foregoing in person to the Consulate this afternoon. No further incidents had occurred at Putsih before he left this morning.
I shall call upon my Japanese colleague tomorrow to demand an apology, punishment of the offender and assurance that such incidents will not occur again. A full report will follow by mail.47
Sent to the Department, repeated to Chungking, Tokyo.
- Not printed.↩