393.115 China National Aviation Company/61: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)
316. Your 568, August 31, 9 p.m., and previous. You are authorized to present a reply to the Foreign Office’s note along lines as follows:
The American Government has given careful consideration to the statements contained in the Foreign Office’s note and annex of August 31 in regard to the attack by Japanese naval planes upon a commercial airplane of the China National Aviation Corporation, and to pertinent reports from American official sources in regard to the principal circumstances of the attack in question.
The American Government has ascertained that the plane which was the object of attack was operated in a well-known and well-established service between Hong Kong and Chungking; that the attack upon this plane occurred during a flight which was carried out as to date and time on a regularly advertised schedule out of Hong Kong; and that when the Japanese planes sighted the civilian plane, the civilian plane was on the regularly-flown course. It has also been learned that the plane attacked bore identification marks on the upper and lower surfaces of its wings in the form of Chinese characters 5 by 4½ feet in size made with strokes over 5 inches wide. As the foregoing information is of a public character and was available to the Japanese authorities, the American Government is of the opinion that the exercise of reasonable care to identify the object of attack would have averted the incident in question.
With regard to the opinion expressed by the Japanese Government that the incident does not involve the interests of third powers, it was pointed out in the Embassy’s note of August 26 to the Foreign Office88 that the life of an American national was directly imperiled and that loss was occasioned to American interests vested in the China National Aviation Corporation. It is obvious that the incident in question was and is of material concern to the American Government and people; and, moreover, this Government reserves the right to call to the attention of the Japanese Government any and all instances of the imperiling of American lives or interests in China by the activities of Japanese military forces.
The American Government therefore feels impelled to call the attention of the Japanese Government to the urgency of there being taken steps effectively to implement the Japanese government’s repeated assurances with regard to the rights and interests of American nationals, and more especially of there being taken such steps with regard to the operation of Japanese military planes as may remove the possibility of attacks by such planes upon the lives or property of non-combatant civilians in circumstances where such attacks will jeopardize the lives and interests of American nationals.
Please link action under this instruction with action under Department’s No. 317, Sept. 14—3 p.m.89
- Text of note is contained in press release issued by the Department, August 26, 1938, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 619.↩
- Infra.↩