USS Panay incident

Common card · No. 234096

The USS Panay incident was a Japanese bombing attack on the U.S. Navy river gunboat Panay and three Standard Oil Company tankers on the Yangtze River near the Chinese capital of Nanjing on 12 December 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The boats were part of an 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 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. Public reaction was mixed in the U.S., with Franklin D. Roosevelt weighing various diplomatic and military responses only to settle for an apology and compensation. 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 of US$2.2 million. The settlement...

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