Cameraman Norman Alley was napping on the gunboat’s deck when Japanese bombs began falling round him. The Common News cameraman grabbed his digicam and commenced filming as explosions ripped by means of the USS Panay on Dec. 12, 1937. Throughout the river, three Customary Oil tankers burst into flames. Japanese dive bombers flew shut sufficient overhead for Alley to see the pilots’ faces. The US and Japan weren’t at warfare but, Pearl Harbor was nonetheless 4 years away.
By the point the assault ended, three Individuals and an Italian journalist had been useless. The Panay sank into the Yangtze River in China. Japan instantly claimed the bombing was a horrible mistake and an accident. Nonetheless, the movie that Alley took proved them mistaken.
Escape From Nanjing
The Panay had protected American pursuits on the Yangtze River since 1928. Inbuilt Shanghai as a flat-bottomed river gunboat, the 191-foot vessel carried 59 crew members and mounted two 3-inch weapons plus eight machine weapons. A brass plaque expressed the vessel’s mission within the area, “For the safety of American life and property within the Yangtze River Valley and its tributaries, and the furtherance of American good will in China.”
Japanese forces surrounded Nanjing in early December 1937. The town served as China’s capital on the time. Lt. Cmdr. James J. Hughes acquired orders on Dec. 11 to evacuate the final Individuals nonetheless within the metropolis. The ship took aboard 4 embassy staffers, 4 Americans and 7 international nationals.
A number of journalists boarded the ship. Alley and Fox Movietone News cameraman Eric Mayell got here aboard to movie the evacuation. New York Instances photographer Norman Soong joined them together with Collier’s Weekly correspondent Jim Marshall. Italian journalists Luigi Barzini Jr. from Corriere della Sera and Sandro Sandri from La Stampa additionally boarded the ship.
The Panay was additionally ordered to escort three Customary Oil tankers together with the Mei Ping, Mei An and Mei Hsia. The ships had been carrying roughly 800 Chinese language staff and their households fleeing town. Hughes ordered giant American flags to be painted on the gunboat’s higher deck the place they’d be seen from any plane. Extra flags had been flown from the ship itself and the mast. He radioed Japanese forces each probability he obtained to keep away from any incidents
The ships moved upriver on Dec. 11 whereas Nanjing burned behind them.
“That night time all of us stood and watched the burning and sacking of Nanking, till we rounded the bend and noticed nothing however a brilliant crimson sky silhouetted with clouds of smoke,” Alley wrote.
The Assault on the USS Panay
A Japanese infantry unit signaled the Panay to cease round 9:40 a.m. the next morning. A lieutenant boarded with 4 riflemen and requested Hughes about any Chinese language troop positions they might have noticed. Hughes defined that america was impartial and shared intelligence with neither aspect. The Japanese officer appeared to just accept this response and left. The convoy anchored 28 miles north of Nanjing. Hughes once more radioed Japanese forces together with his precise location.
Crew members sat down and ate Sunday lunch round 1:30 p.m. when lookouts noticed three plane approaching. The Yokosuka B4Y Sort-96 bombers had entered Japanese naval service the earlier 12 months. They every carried 132-pound bombs.
The bombers out of the blue attacked with out warning. The primary bomb hit the Panay’s port bow, destroying the ahead 3-inch gun. Shrapnel tore by means of Hughes and a number of other crew members. The explosion wrecked the pilot home, smashed radio tools and disabled the fireplace room. The ship misplaced all energy. Hull leaks brought on the vessel to listing and settle ahead.
Alley and Mayell filmed the assault. Soong snapped pictures regardless of water from near-misses drenching him.
“My first response was that the Japanese, mistaking the Panay for an enemy ship had then realized their error and had been leaving however this was mistaken,” Alley mentioned. “Virtually straight thereafter a squadron of six small pursuit-type bombers came visiting at a a lot decrease altitude and instantly started to power-dive.”
The dive-bombers got here in and dropped quite a few small bombs on the vessel.
The crew manned the remaining machine weapons and returned fireplace. Nonetheless, they didn’t hit any of the plane. Lt. Arthur Anders took command from the wounded Hughes. With the ship sinking, Anders gave the order to desert ship at 3:55 p.m.
The Panay had no lifeboats. The survivors used two small motorized sampans to ferry wounded males to the shore. Japanese fighters strafed each boats. Extra males had been wounded. A Japanese artillery unit close by started shelling the ship because it went underneath.
Throughout the river, the oil tankers burned. Japanese bombers had struck all three vessels. Customary Oil captain C.H. Carlson died aboard the Mei An. Two of the tankers sank. The third beached itself. A whole lot of Chinese language civilians had been killed or wounded within the assault.
The gunboat rolled over and disappeared underneath the floor. Two American sailors and Italian journalist Sandro Sandri died within the assault. Forty-eight individuals had been wounded on the gunboat, 43 sailors and 5 civilians.
After the Sinking
The survivors huddled within the reeds alongside the riverbank. Japanese plane circled overhead. Many males wore solely the garments they’d grabbed through the evacuation. December temperatures on the river had been close to freezing.
U.S. Army Capt. Frank Roberts, a army attaché who spoke Chinese language, organized the group. Embassy Second Secretary George Atcheson Jr. helped prepare help from a close-by village. Earlier than leaving the shore, Alley wrapped his movie canisters and Mayell’s in canvas and buried them in mud to forestall Japanese forces from discovering the footage.
Poor Chinese language villagers shared rice and tea with the survivors regardless of their concern of Japanese retaliation. The survivors spent three nights hiding within the chilly.
British gunboats HMS Ladybird and HMS Bee reached them on Dec. 14 together with the American gunboat USS Oahu. Japanese forces had even fired upon these ships that day. The rescue vessels transported the wounded and survivors to Shanghai. They finally boarded the heavy cruiser USS Augusta, Admiral Harry E. Yarnell’s flagship, earlier than being returned house.
The identical Japanese forces that had attacked the Panay additionally bombed the British vessel SS Wantung later that day.
The Movie Proves Japanese Claims Fallacious
Alley returned to recuperate the buried movie. He turned the footage over to Navy officers.
Within the aftermath of the assault, Japan claimed poor visibility and confusion brought on the incident. Japanese officers mentioned their pilots by no means noticed the American flags. The climate had been too misty to establish the vessel correctly.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt seen Alley’s footage earlier than its public launch. The movie confirmed clear skies and sunny climate. Japanese plane flew inside just a few hundred ft of the Panay, shut sufficient that Alley and Mayell filmed particular person pilots’ faces by means of their cockpit home windows.
A Navy courtroom of inquiry investigated the incident and decided a number of giant American flags had been clearly seen on the Panay through the assault. The climate was clear and sunny. Visibility was wonderful. The courtroom interviewed survivors and examined the newsreel footage. Officers concluded the Japanese claims had been false. The ship had been correctly marked and recognized.
Navy cryptographers had intercepted and decoded Japanese naval communications. Historian John Prados later revealed the decoded site visitors confirmed the pilots acquired official orders earlier than attacking. This specific info stayed labeled to guard American codebreaking capabilities.
Roosevelt requested that Alley reduce 30 ft from the 53-foot newsreel earlier than theatrical launch. Even after being edited, the footage fully debunked the Japanese claims.
Film theaters screened the movie on Dec. 19. American audiences watched their gunboat sink, noticed wounded sailors abandon ship and witnessed Japanese fighters strafe the rescue boats. Newspapers revealed survivors’ accounts. Public outrage grew.
“Hell, I can imagine these infants flying stage up there at 7,000 or 8,000 ft might need made an error,” Alley mentioned years later. “However not these dive-bombers coming down at us from just a few hundred ft.”
The Japanese conveniently forgot that their forces attacked quite a few American and British ships. Colonel Kingoro Hashimoto later knowledgeable British officers that his forces had acquired orders to fireplace on all vessels on the Yangtze. The Japanese probably wished to sink the oil tankers and kill the Chinese language aboard the vessels. Because the escort for the tankers, the Panay was seen as a official goal by Japanese forces.
The Diplomatic Disaster
Ambassador Joseph C. Grew in Tokyo feared warfare. He remembered how the USS Maine’s 1898 explosion in Havana Harbor triggered the Spanish-American Conflict. Roosevelt briefly thought of army motion however confronted robust isolationist sentiment from his cupboard and the American individuals. Many Individuals questioned why the Navy even operated in China. Britain rejected any potential motion in opposition to Japan.
Japan rapidly moved to include the harm. Vice Admiral Rokuzo Sugiyama delivered a proper apology that reached Washington on Christmas Eve. Although Japan maintained the assault was an accident regardless of the proof.
Particular person Japanese residents despatched letters and cash to the embassy expressing disgrace. Ambassador Grew’s Dec. 20 diary entry famous his embassy had been “deluged by delegations, guests, letters, and contributions of cash — individuals from all walks of life, from excessive officers, medical doctors, professors, businessmen down to high school kids, making an attempt to specific their disgrace, apologies, and regrets for the motion of their very own Navy.”
Japan paid $2,214,007.36 on April 22, 1938. The cash helped fund the Japan-America Belief, which maintained graves of American sailors in Japan courting again to Commodore Matthew Perry’s 1853 expedition.
An Overshadowed Occasion
The Navy awarded the Navy Cross to Fireman First Class John L. Hodge and Lt. Clark G. Grazier. Two British officers acquired the Navy Cross for serving to rescue the survivors. All Panay crew members acquired the Navy Expeditionary Medal and China Service Medal.
The assault shifted American public opinion in opposition to Japan. Congress handed the Naval Act of March 1938, authorizing the enlargement of the Pacific Fleet. However the incident was rapidly forgotten by most Individuals, even after Japanese enlargement grew to become a significant concern in 1940 and 1941.
When Japanese plane struck Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, few Individuals recalled the gunboat that sank 4 years earlier. For many Individuals, World Conflict II began at Pearl Harbor. For the boys aboard the Panay, Japan had been an enemy of the nation for years already.
Curiously, one of many pilots who led the assault on the Panay, Lt. Shigeharu Murata, commanded torpedo bombers at Pearl Harbor that will severely maul the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Even at present, the Panay Incident is totally overshadowed, although it’s the first of quite a few occasions that put the U.S. and Japan on the trail to warfare.
