393.115 Standard Vacuum Oil Co./257: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:24 a.m.]
310. My 293, June 24, noon. Standard-Vacuum Oil Company has received a telegram from its Ichang office dated June 30 stating in [Page 886] brief that its installation was hit by nine Chinese shells on the 29th and that Chinese planes again dropped bombs near the installation on June 30th causing damage. Earlier attack killed 19 and wounded 30 persons on or near property including relatives of Chinese crews. The telegram asked that the Chinese Government be informed that no Japanese were close to the installation. I have addressed a second note to the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs transmitting this assertion as well as additional information now received concerning damage, protesting against this inexplicable continued attack on American property and insisting that all possible measures be taken to cause it to cease.86
Sent to the Department. Repeated to Peiping, Hankow, Shanghai.
- In a note of July 5 (transmitted to the Department by the Ambassador in China in despatch No. 585, July 9), the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs expressed the regrets of the Chinese Government (393.115 Standard Vacuum Oil Co./267).↩