Press Release Issued by the Department of State on August 26, 193862
Text of a note presented to the Japanese Foreign Office by the American Ambassador at Tokyo, upon instruction of the Secretary of State:
[Page 620][Tokyo,] August 26, 1938.
Excellency: Acting under instructions, I have the honor on behalf of my Government to protest to Your Excellency against the unwarranted attack on August 24, 1938, near Macao, by Japanese airplanes upon a commercial airplane operated by the China National Aviation Corporation resulting in the total destruction of the commercial airplane, the loss of the lives of a number of noncombatant passengers, and the endangering of the life of the American pilot.
This attack upon the plane has aroused public feeling in the United States.
I am directed to point out to Your Excellency, with reference to the attack in question, that not only was the life of an American national directly imperilled but loss was also occasioned to American property interests as the Pan American Airways has a very substantial interest in the China National Aviation Corporation.
I am directed to invite the special attention of Your Excellency to the following points in the account of Pilot Wood: the China National Aviation Corporation plane was pursued by Japanese planes which started machine gunning; after the China National Aviation Corporation plane had successfully landed it was followed down by Japanese pursuit planes which continued to machine gun it until it had sunk; and when Pilot Wood started swimming across the river he was followed by one of the Japanese planes which continued to machine gun him.
My Government desires to express its emphatic objection to the jeopardizing in this way of the lives of American as well as other noncombatant occupants of unarmed civilian planes engaged in clearly recognized and established commercial services over a regularly scheduled air route.
I avail myself [etc.]
- Reprinted from Department of State, Press Releases, August 27, 1938 (vol, xix, No. 465), p. 146.↩