793.94/3874: Telegram
The Consul General at Shanghai (Cunningham) to the Secretary of State
[Received 6:20 p.m.]
The Department’s January 29, 6 p.m. This requires a little explanation. It is when some emergency is declared there is appointed a Defense Committee composed of Chairman of Municipal Council, Commander of Shanghai Volunteer Corps and the senior officer of each landing force. These approve the division of the Settlement into sectors for defense purposes, each nationality being assigned by Defense Committee a certain sector. I have not confirmed the actual proceedings this Committee. On the 28th, however, the Japanese Admiral defined the assignment to the Japanese, saying that the Defense Committee allocated that sector of the Settlement for Japanese defense extending from the river following the northern boundary to an undetermined point on Settlement boundary and the Municipal property and road in the tongue (see my telegram January 31, 5 p.m.) and when he informed the Committee that in order to protect the International Settlement it would be necessary for him to extend his line westward to the Woosung Railway and eastward to Sawgin Creek the Committee “assented as a temporary measure”. The admiral also emphasized that it was necessary to extend to the railway in order that he might protect the many Japanese residents in that section.
Repeated to the Legation and Nanking.