206 CHINA INCIDENT

In the meantime the Department had cabled me (December 12,
11.45 p.m.—received at the Embassy December 13, 9.15 p.m.),
" triple priority," that reports of the incident had been received
from Hankow and directed me to call on the Minister, ask for in-
formation, request that the Japanese immediately take appropriate
action, and impress upon Hirota the gravity of the situation and the
imperative need to take every precaution against further attacks on
American vessels or personnel. I replied at 9.45 p.m. that the
Department's instructions had been anticipated and acted upon this
morning ; that we had as yet received no word of the sinking of the
Panay from American official sources, and that as the Department's
telegram had taken nine hours in transmission I suggested that all
urgent messages be sent by radio instead of by cable via Manila and
'Shanghai.

At first a press ban was placed on the publication of the news in
Japan, but this was shortly withdrawn and the Foreign Office gave
out an official statement implying that the Panay and the Standard
Oil ships were mixed up with a lot of Chinese ships conveying the
fleeing remnants of the Chinese forces in Nanking and that the
incident was therefore purely accidental. Morin of the A.P., Thomp-
son of the U.P., and Fleisher of the New York Herald Tribune all came
in to find out what we knew. I told them, off the record, that I had
been working for five years to build up Japanese-American friend-
ship and that this incident seemed to me to risk shattering the whole
structure. Indeed, at the moment, I seriously feared a breach of
relations and already began to plan the details of hurried packing
in case we had to leave—precisely as we began to pack in Berlin after
the sinking of the Lusitania in'1915. I could not then foresee whether
the patience of the American Government and people would stand
the strain of this apparently gratuitous, if not intentional, insult.

AFTER THE PANAY SINKING

December 20, 1937

Once again the diary has fallen badly behind and I find it difficult
in these days of stress and strain to keep it up to date. We have
been working very hard, night and day and Sundays, and the crisis
arising .from the incident of the Panay has tended to exacerbate our
nerves and feelings. That incident does seem really incredible.
War never is and never can be a humane pursuit, but the action of
the Japanese naval and military elements first in bombing the Panay
and then in machine-gunning at close range and attempting to
exterminate the wounded and other survivors even after they had
crawled into the thicket on the shore is almost past comprehension.

Hitherto the Japanese have pleaded " poor visibility " and error
as an excuse for their various air bombings of non-military objectives,
including hospitals, missionary institutions, and universities, but no
such plea can be advanced with any weight in the case of the Panay.