The USS Panay incident was a Japanese bombing attack on the U.S. Navyriver gunboatPanay and three Standard Oil Company tankers on the Yangtze River near the Chinese capital of Nanjing on December 12, 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The boats were part of the American naval operation called the Yangtze Patrol, which began following the joint British, French, and American victory in the Second Opium War.
The bombing raid resulted in the sinking of the Panay as well as the deaths of three Americans on board, plus an unknown but likely high casualty toll amongst the Chinese passengers in the three river tankers.[1]
Public reaction was mixed in the U.S., with the president weighing various diplomatic and military responses only to settle for an apology and compensation.[2]
The Japanese claimed that they did not see the large U.S. flags painted on the deck and canvases of the gunboat. Tokyo officially apologized and paid a cash indemnity. The settlement mollified some of the U.S. anger, and newspapers called the matter closed.[3]
However, camera footage taken during the attack showed Japanese aircraft flying so low near the Panay that the pilots' faces were visible, providing "potent evidence that the mistaken identity claim was not true."[1]
The attack on the Panay was not an isolated case in the Battle of Nanjing. In addition to the Panay and her consort of three tankers, Japanese aircraft and land forces would attack a multitude of other vessels belonging to the Western powers along the Yangtze near Nanjing.[4]
Background
A flat-bottomed craft built in Shanghai specifically for river duty, Panay served as part of the US Navy's Yangtze Patrol in the Asiatic Fleet, which was responsible for patrolling the Yangtze River to protect American lives and property in China.
USSPanay underway during the standardization trial off Woosung, China, on 30 August 1928.
Since November, the Panay had been evacuating U.S. citizens from the battle zone around Nanjing. On December 11, the Panay evacuated some of the last remaining Americans from the city, bringing the number of people aboard to five officers, 54 enlisted men, four US embassy staff, and 10 civilians, including Universal Newsreel cameraman Norman Alley, Fox Movietone News cameraman Eric Mayell, the New York Times's Norman Soong, Collier's Weekly correspondent Jim Marshall, La Stampa correspondent Sandro Sandri and Corriere della Sera correspondent Luigi Barzini Jr.[5]
The Panay was also tasked with escorting three Standard Oiltankers, Mei Ping, Mei An, and Mei Hsia, which were carrying some 800 Chinese employees of Standard Vacuum Oil and their families.[6]
Attack
Lt Shigeharu Murata, who led the attack on the Panay
On the morning of the 12th, Japanese air forces stationed near Nanjing received information that fleeing Chinese forces were in the area in ten large steamers and a large number of junks and that they were between 12 and 25 miles (19 and 40km) upstream from Nanjing. Japanese naval aircraft led by Lieutenant Okumiya Masatake and Lieutenant Shigeharu Murata (who would lead torpedo bombers at Pearl Harbor four years later) departed from Changzhou.[7][8]
While anchored some 28 miles upstream from Nanjing, Panay and her three consorts, came under attack by the Japanese formations. The Panay was clearly marked and identified with two large American flags painted on its canvas awnings.[8]
A frame from a newsreel which caught a Japanese plane attacking Panay in ChinaAmerican gunners return fire at Japanese aircraft
Panay was hit by two of the eighteen 132lb (60kg) bombs dropped by three Yokosuka B4Y Type-96 bombers from high altitude, and then strafed by nine Nakajima A4N Type-95 fighters at low altitude.[9] The first bomb split the Panay'sforemast and disabled its forward gun. Shrapnel from several of the bombs that exploded near the vessel damaged the ship's hull and injured crew on the deck. Several Americans manned a 30-caliber machine gun on board and returned fire at the Japanese, but did not manage to hit any of the aircraft.[7]
At 2pm, facing irreparable damage and grievous injuries amongst the crew, Lieutenant Arthur Anders gave the order to abandon ship, and evacuated the crew and civilians onto two motorboats, the vast majority of them wounded.[10] Planes also machine-gunned these small boats taking the wounded ashore, and several more survivors were wounded. According to Lieutenant J.W. Geist, an officer aboard Panay, "the day before we told the Japanese army in the area who we were," and three U.S. flags were plainly visible on the ship. The Times correspondent Colin MacDonald, who had also been aboard Panay, saw a Japanese army small boat machine-gun the Panay as it was sinking in spite of the American flag painted on the side of the ship. Since Japanese planes continued to circle overhead, survivors cowered knee deep in mud in a swamp.[11]
Panay's lifeboats were machine-gunned by Japanese fighter planes in the attack.[12] As the ship sank, Japanese colonel Kingoro Hashimoto, who was in the immediate vicinity, ordered his artillery to fire on the Panay. Hashimoto would also order his troops to fire on British vessels whose identities he knew.[1]
At 3:54pm, the Panay sank as a result of the attack. Storekeeper First Class Charles Lee Ensminger, Standard Oil tanker captain Carl H. Carlson and Italian reporter Sandro Sandri were killed, Coxswain Edgar C. Hulsebus died later that night.[13][14] 43 sailors and five civilians were wounded.
The Panay listing to starboard before sinking
The three Standard Oil tankers were also bombed and destroyed, and the captain of Mei An and many Chinese civilian passengers were killed, although the number was not recorded in Standard Oil's Records. Also lost were two of four smaller company craft elsewhere by Japanese attacks. [6] The vessels had been helping to evacuate the families of Standard Oil's employees and agents from Nanjing during the Japanese attack on that city.[15]
Survivors in a local village, December 13, one day after the attack
Two newsreel cameramen, Norman Alley of Universal Newsreel and Eric Mayell of Fox Movietone News, were aboard Panay during the attack; they were able to film parts of the attack including Japanese aircraft on low-level strafing runs and, after reaching shore, the sinking of the ship in the middle of the river. The survivors of the attack then waded through knee-deep mud to a nearby village, carrying those too badly wounded to walk.[10][1]
The survivors were later taken aboard the American vessel Oahu and the British gunboatsHMSLadybird and Bee. Earlier the same day, a Japanese shore battery had fired on Ladybird. The survivors coped with near freezing nights wearing inadequate clothing along with no food. It took three days to move the sixteen wounded to the safety of several British and American ships.[16]
The Japanese pilots who attacked the Panay would also bomb the British vessel SSWantung later that same day.[5]
Diplomacy
The aftermath of the Panay sinking was a nervous time for the American ambassador to Japan, Joseph C. Grew. Grew, whose experience in the foreign service spanned over 30 years, "remembered the USS Maine," the U.S. Navy ship that blew up in Havana Harbor in 1898. The sinking of Maine had propelled the U.S. into the Spanish–American War and ambassador Grew hoped the sinking of Panay would not be a similar catalyst for the severance of diplomatic ties and war with Japan.
The Japanese government took full responsibility for sinking Panay but continued to maintain that the attack had been unintentional. Chief of Staff of Japanese naval forces in northern China, Vice Admiral Rokuzo Sugiyama, was assigned to make an apology.[17] The formal apology reached Washington, D.C., on Christmas Eve.
Although Japanese officials maintained that their pilots never saw any American flags on Panay, a US Navy court of inquiry determined that several US flags were clearly visible on the vessel during the attacks.[18] At the meeting held at the American embassy in Tokyo on December 23, Japanese officials maintained that one navy airplane had attacked a boat by machine gun for a short period of time and that Japanese army motor boats or launches had been attacking the Chinese steamers escaping upstream on the opposite bank. However, the Japanese navy insisted that the attack had been unintentional. The Japanese government paid an indemnity of $2,214,007.36 (approximately $47,920,000 in 2025) to the US on April 22, 1938, officially settling the Panay incident.[19]
Following the incident, Japanese individuals and organizations sent letters of apology and gifts of money to U.S. diplomatic offices and the U.S. Navy Department in Washington, D.C. This ranged from letters penned by schoolchildren to organized pools of donors.
The most prominent donor was the America-Japan Society, headed by Prince Tokugawa Iesato, which amassed ¥16,242.56 in Panay contributions from 7,749 people and 218 organizations.[20]
In response to the donations, Secretary of State Cordell Hull stated that "neither the American Government nor any agency of it nor any of its nationals should receive sums of money thus offered or take direct benefit therefrom." However, Hull noted that since "a flat rejection of such offers would produce some misunderstanding of our general attitude and offend those Japanese who make such a gesture, the Department is of the opinion that some method should be found whereby Japanese who wish to give that type of expression to their feelings may do so."[20]
The United States State Department expressed the desire that any necessary arrangements should be made promptly. Hull did not wish to keep the Japanese people waiting for a decision on what was to become of the money they donated. A prolonged delay could lead to misunderstanding, especially if a decision were reached months later to return the money to the donors.
A temporary solution was reached to allow only the American ambassador in Japan and the American ambassador in China to accept donations related to the Panay incident. Several American consulates were receiving money, including consulates at Nagoya, Kobe, Nagasaki and Osaka, in Japan; Taipei, Taiwan; Keijo (Seoul), Korea; Dairen, Manchuria; and São Paulo, Brazil. These contributions were eventually forwarded to the ambassador in Tokyo. Grew kept all money received related to the Panay incident in the embassy safe until the State Department could find a solution.[20]
Despite this policy, a local newspaper in Nagasaki, the Nagasaki Minyu Shimbun, published stories about some Japanese donations to the American consulate in Nagasaki, including an excerpt from a letter attached to a schoolboy's donation. Arthur F. Tower, the American consul in Nagasaki, informed Ambassador Grew of the article, which had been published on January 7. Tower also informed Grew that a reporter of another newspaper—the Tokyo and Osaka Asahi Shimbun, had called on him on 23 December to discuss the Panay contributions. Towers reassured Grew that "this consulate has not sought to give publicity to the donations received or offered and has furnished information concerning them on two occasions only, when requested." However, the newspaper stories may nonetheless have increased contributions to the location.[20]
A final solution to the donations was reached by creating the Japan-America Trust in the name of the Panay survivors and relatives of those who lost their lives. The trust would be used to care for the graves of American sailors buried in Japan, dating back to the graves of sailors involved in the Perry Expedition in 1853. The formation of the trust allowed the State Department to avoid returning donations or directly distributing them to the U.S. government or individuals. (see also Foreign cemeteries in Japan)
Fireman First Class John L. Hodge is decorated with the Navy Cross for bravery displayed during the sinking of the USS Panay
Fireman First Class John L. Hodge and Lieutenant Clark G. Grazier were presented with the Navy Cross for their actions during the Panay incident.[22][23]
The Navy Cross was also presented to two British naval officers, Vice Admiral Lewis Eyre Crabbe and Lieut. Commander Harry Barlow, for their assistance in recovering survivors from the USS Panay.[24][25]
Responsibility for the attack
Modern historians believe that the attack may have been intentional.
Newsreel footage captured by the cameramen aboard the Panay showed Japaense aircraft passing so close to the ship that the pilots' faces were visible, which provided "potent evidence" that Japanese claim of mistaken identity was not true according to American historian Richard B. Frank. Per Roosevelt's request, Universal Pictures edited the sequence out of its newsreels per to quell a political crisis.[1]
According to John Prados, Navy cryptographers had intercepted and decrypted traffic relating to the attacking planes which clearly indicated that they were under orders during the attack and that it had not been a mistake of any kind. This information was not released at the time because it would have revealed that the United States had broken Japanese Naval codes.[17]
Japanese colonel Kingoro Hashimoto in 1937, who deliberately ordered artillery attacks on the sinking Panay and British ships near Nanjing
Writer Nick Sparks believes that the chaos in Nanjing created an opportunity for renegade factions within the Japanese army who wanted to force the U.S. into an active conflict so that the Japanese could once and for all drive the U.S. out of China.[26]
The Panay was not the only Western vessel attacked on the Yangtze during the Battle of Nanking. The Japanese pilots responsible for the Panay attack would bomb the British ship SSWantung on the same afternoon.[5] Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto, who had founded a right-wing secret society in Japan and targeted the Panay as it sank, had also deliberately shelled the British vessels SS Scarab and HMS Cricket beforehand. When informed that the ships had clearly flown the British flag, Hashimoto responded "I do not recognize any flag but my own." Hashimoto had also issued orders to his troops to fire on all ships on the Yangtze "regardless of nationality."[27]
Legacy
Grave at Arlington National Cemetery of Fon Huffman
Fon Huffman, the last survivor of the incident, died in 2008.[28] The last surviving Japanese pilot who participated in the attack was Kaname Harada,[29] who died in 2016.
The episode has been cited by Philip K. Dick in his novel The Man in the High Castle, depicted in a collectible picture-card of the 1940s, in the series Horrors of War with the title "The sinking of the Panay."
The incident features in the 2005 novel A Winter in China by the British writer Douglas Galbraith. It is also described in the historical fiction novel Pearl Harbor by Newt Gingrich and William R. Forstchen.
The 2009 film John Rabe portrays a fictionalized version of the incident.
The Battle of Nanking was fought in early December 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War between the Chinese National Revolutionary Army and the Imperial Japanese Army for control of Nanjing, the capital of the Republic of China.
The United States Asiatic Fleet was a fleet of the United States Navy during much of the first half of the 20th century. Before World War II, the fleet patrolled the Philippine Islands. Much of the fleet was destroyed by the Japanese by February 1942, after which it was dissolved, and the remnants incorporated into the naval component of the South West Pacific Area command, which eventually became the Seventh Fleet.
USS Bonefish (SS-223) was a Gato-class submarine, the first United States Navy ship to be named for the bonefish.
The Battle of Shanghai was a major battle fought between the Empire of Japan and the Republic of China in the Chinese city of Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It lasted from August 13, 1937, to November 26, 1937, and was arguably the single largest and longest battle of the entire war, with it even regarded by some historians as the first battle of World War II. It resulted in the Japanese capture of the city and heavy destruction to the city.
USS Edsall (DD-219), was a Clemson-class destroyer, the first of two United States Navy ships named after Seaman Norman Eckley Edsall (1873–1899). She was sunk by a combined Japanese air and sea attack, approximately 200 miles (320 km) east of Christmas Island on 1 March 1942.
Operation Praying Mantis was the 18 April 1988 attack by the United States on Iranian naval targets in the Persian Gulf in retaliation for the mining of a U.S. warship four days earlier.
A river gunboat is a type of gunboat adapted for river operations. River gunboats required shallow draft for river navigation. They would be armed with relatively small caliber cannons, or a mix of cannons and machine guns. If they carried more than one cannon, one might be a howitzer, for shore bombardment. They were usually not armoured. The fictional USS San Pablo described in Richard McKenna's The Sand Pebbles is an example of this class of vessel, serving on the US Navy's Yangtze Patrol. Stronger river warships with larger guns were river monitors.
The second USS Panay (PR–5) of the United States Navy was a Panay-class river gunboat that served on the Yangtze Patrol in China until being sunk by Japanese aircraft on 12 December 1937 on the Yangtze River.
The Yangtze Patrol, also known as the Yangtze River Patrol Force, Yangtze River Patrol, YangPat, and ComYangPat, was a prolonged naval operation from 1854 to 1949 to protect American interests in the Yangtze River's treaty ports. The Yangtze Patrol also patrolled the coastal waters of China where they protected U.S. citizens, their property, and Christian missionaries.
The Nakajima A4N was a carrier-based fighter used by the Imperial Japanese Navy, and the last biplane designed by Nakajima. The first prototype was completed in 1934, but due to engine trouble, the aircraft did not see service until 1936. Given the Nakajima internal designation Nakajima YM, the Japanese Navy designation was Navy Type 95 Carrier Fighter. A total of 221 were built. It saw combat in the Second Sino-Japanese War in the late 1930s.
The Nanking Incident occurred in March 1927 during the capture of Nanjing by the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) in their Northern Expedition. Foreign warships bombarded the city to defend foreign residents against rioting and looting. Several ships were involved in the engagement, including vessels of the Royal Navy and the United States Navy. Marines and sailors were also landed for rescue operations including some 140 Dutch forces. Both Nationalist and Communist soldiers within the NRA participated in the rioting and looting of foreign-owned property in Nanjing.
Tenryū was the lead ship in the two-ship Tenryū class of light cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Tenryū was named after the Tenryū River in Nagano and Shizuoka prefectures.
USS Tutuila (PR-4) was a gunboat in the service of the United States Navy from 1928, until her transfer to China, under lend-lease in 1942.
John Henry Lang (1899–1970) was an American who served with the Canadian Army in World War I and then with the United States Navy through World War II and the end of his career. He earned military awards and honors for heroic service from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Japan in the first half of the twentieth century.
The Insect-class gunboats were a class of small but well-armed Royal Navy ships designed for use in shallow rivers or inshore. They were intended for use on the Danube against Austria-Hungary. The first four ships—Gnat, Mantis, Moth and Tarantula—were first employed during the Mesopotamian Campaign of the First World War on the Euphrates and Tigris rivers.
USS Isabel (SP-521), later PY-10, was a yacht in commission in the United States Navy as a destroyer from 1917 to 1920 and as a patrol yacht from 1921 to 1946.
USS Finch (AM-9) was a Lapwing-class minesweeper acquired by the U.S. Navy for the dangerous task of removing mines from minefields laid in the water to prevent ships from passing. Finch was named for the finch, and is strictly speaking the only U.S. vessel named for such.
The Commander-in-Chief, China, was the admiral in command of what was usually known as the China Station, at once both a British Royal Navy naval formation and its admiral in command. It was created in 1865 and deactivated in 1941.
The first USS Oahu (PR-6), a Yangtze River gunboat, was laid down by Kiangnan Dock and Engineering Works, Shanghai, China, 18 December 1926; launched as PG–46 on 26 November 1927; sponsored by Mrs. Bryson Bruce, wife of Comdr. Bruce; and commissioned 22 October 1928.
SS President Hoover was an ocean liner built for the Dollar Steamship Lines. She was completed in 1930 and provided a trans-Pacific service between the US and the Far East. In 1937 she ran aground on an island off Formosa during a typhoon and was declared a total loss. She had a sister ship, President Coolidge, that was completed in 1931, was made a troopship in 1941 and was lost after striking a mine while attempting to enter the harbor at Espiritu Santo in 1942.
References
1 2 3 4 5 Frank, Richard (2022). Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War: July 1937-May 1942. W. W. Norton & Company. p.102.
↑ Douglas Peifer, “Presidential Crisis Decision Making Following the Sinking of the Panay,”Archived 24 December 2018 at the Wayback MachineInternational Journal of Naval History, vol. 14, nr. 2 (November 2018); Douglas Peifer, “The American Response to the Sinking of the USS Panay, December 1937.” In New Interpretations in Naval History: Selected Papers from the 2017 Naval History Symposium, ed. Brian VanDeMark. Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 2023.
↑ Harmsen, Peter (2015). Nanjing 1937, Battle for a Doomed City. Casemate. p.232.
1 2 3 Harmsen, Peter (2015). Nanjing 1937, Battle for a Doomed City. Casemate. p.215.
1 2 The Standard-Vacuum Oil Company and United States East Asian Policy, 1933-1941. Princeton University Press. 1975. pp.107–108.
1 2 Harmsen, Peter (2015). Nanjing 1937, Battle for a Doomed City. Casemate. p.214.
1 2 Frank, Richard (2020). Tower of Skulls. W.W. Norton & Company. p.101.
↑ Swanson, Harland J. (December 1967). "The Panay Incident: Prelude to Pearl Harbor". United States Naval Institute Proceedings.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
1 2 Harmsen, Peter (2015). Nanjing 1937, Battle for a Doomed City. Casemate. pp.215–216.
↑ Barzini Jr, Luigi (18 December 1937). "La drammatica fine della "Panay" e la stoica morte di Sandro Sandri nel racconto di Luigi Barzini jr". Corriere della Sera.
↑ Mender, P., Thirty Years a Mariner in the Far East 1907–1937, The Memoirs of Peter Mender, a Standard Oil ship captain on China's Yangtze River, ISBN978-1-60910-498-6.
↑ Yangtze Patrol: The U.S. Navy in China. Kemp Tolley. Naval Institute Press, March 22, 2013
1 2 Prados, John., Combined Fleet Decoded: The Secret History of American Intelligence and the Japanese Navy in World War II, ISBN0-679-43701-0.
↑ Japanese Pay U.S. 'In Full' Panay Incident Officially Closed with $2,214.007 Indemnity Settlement . Tokyo, April 22, 1938 Associated Press. Miami Daily News Record April 22, 1938 page 1
Ashbaugh, William. "Relations with Japan." in A Companion to Franklin D. Roosevelt (2011) pp: 612+.
LaFeber, Walter. The clash: a history of U.S.-Japan relations (1997) pp 196–198. excerpt
Konstam, Angus. Yangtze River Gunboats 1900–49 (Bloomsbury, 2012).
Peifer, Douglas Carl. (2016). Choosing war: presidential decisions in the Maine, Lusitania, and Panay incidents. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190939601 online review
Perry, Hamilton Darby. The Panay Incident: Prelude to Pearl Harbor (1969).
Roberts Jr, Frank N. "Climax of Isolationism, Countdown to World War." Naval History 26.6 (2012): 32+
Schnurr, Jeremy. "'The Best Possible Time for War?' The USS Panay and American Far Eastern Policy During the Roosevelt Presidency" (MA thesis. University of Ottawa, 2012) online; bibliography pp 165–72
Swanson, Harlan J. "The 'Panay' Incident: Prelude To Pearl Harbor." U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings (Dec 1967) 93#12 pp 26–37.
Tolley, Kemp. Yangtze Patrol: The US Navy in China (Naval Institute Press, 2013).
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
United States
Japan 
