Panay incident

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The USS Panay on August 30, 1928

In the Panay incident during the Second Sino-Japanese War , the American gunboat USS Panay was sunk by Japanese fighter planes on December 12, 1937 . A diplomatic crisis then developed between the US and Japan, which had previously been neutral to one another.

prehistory

Japanese troops moved towards the then Chinese capital of Nanjing in mid-November 1937 . The Kuomintang -Leader Chiang Kai-shek taught on November 21, the American Ambassador Joseph C. Grew about the arrival of the Japanese just before the city. He recommended that all American and other foreign citizens be evacuated from Nanjing, most of which happened the next morning when the ambassador and his personnel boarded the gunboat USS Luzon , which had been part of the US Yangtze River patrol that had existed since 1854 . The rest of them wanted to wait another week and stayed in town when the Japanese siege began. Ambassador Grew reported her continued presence to the Japanese government before he left.

Course of the incident

Departure of the USS Panay from Nanjing and travel upstream

On December 11th, the USS Panay left Nanjing with American officials and some civilians upstream to avoid heavy fighting. She ran the three standard oil tankers Mei Ping , Mei An and Mei Hsia , whose captains had also decided to leave the city. In addition, there were two British gunboats and a few smaller units in this convoy. During the first few kilometers they were shot at by a Japanese artillery battery near the river bank. Although the bombardment assumed considerable strength, the ships were able to get out of range of the artillery despite slow travel and without receiving a hit.

The Japanese headquarters had been informed of this voyage and on December 12th instructed its pilots to sink all ships above Nanjing. The Panay and the three tankers were at anchor at Hoshien at the time . American flags had been hoisted, but since the Japanese guns were out of range in front of Nanjing, the crew sat at lunch with their passengers and left the guns unoccupied and also uncovered. At that time there were five officers, 54 sailors, four US embassy employees and ten civilians on the ship.

Japanese attack

The sinking USS Panay

At around 1:27 p.m., three Japanese bombers attacked the USS Panay. They dropped 18 bombs, which destroyed the ship's front gun, the navigating bridge , the hospital area and the engine room . The captain, Lieutenant Commander J.J. Hughes was seriously injured in the attack, as were several other crew members and passengers. A further twelve bombers and nine fighters flew to the Panay just minutes after the first aircraft. They dropped bombs for about 20 minutes while the hunters low-altitude machine guns at the ship. Meanwhile the Panay began to fire back with its guns. At around 2:06 p.m., the power supply on the gunboat collapsed completely and the drive failed.

When Captain Hughes realized that the Panay was beginning to sink, he ordered the ship to be abandoned. The lifeboats continued to be shot at by the Japanese hunters on their way to the bank, who then also fired the embankment where there were survivors.

The Panay sank against 15:54 in the Yangtze River . Three people - two soldiers and one civilian - were killed and 43 sailors and five civilians wounded. Two of the three oil tankers were also bombed and destroyed.

The survivors of the incident were taken on board two days later from the USS Oahu and the HMS Ladybird . The Ladybird was also attacked by Japanese fighters and badly damaged on the way to the attack site.

consequences

Universal Newsreel (US newsreel) footage of the incident, December 12, 1937 (commentary in English).

This led to diplomatic tensions between the US and Japan. Fears have been expressed that the incident might have a similar impact as the USS Maine explosion that sparked the Spanish-American War . Joseph Grew , the United States Envoy Extraordinary to Japan, among others , shared these fears. Japan paid $ 2.2 million to resolve the dispute and formally apologized.

Numerous letters and donations from Japanese citizens were received by the American Embassy in Tokyo and the Department of the Navy after the incident .

However, together with reports of atrocities by Japanese soldiers - especially the Nanking massacre  - the Panay incident changed the US public's image of Japan.

swell

  1. ^ Samuel Eliot Morison : The Sinking of Panay, December 12, 1937 , excerpt from History of United States Naval Operations in World War II , Volume 3: The Rising Sun in the Pacific , pp. 16-18.
  2. ↑ a b Trevor K. Plante: “Two Japans”: Japanese Expressions of Sympathy and Regret in the Wake of the Panay Incident , archives.gov December 13, 2017.

literature

Web links

Commons : Panay Incident  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files