USS Panay incident

USS Panay incident
Part of the Second Sino-Japanese War
USS Panay sinking after Japanese air attack. Nanjing, China.
Date December 12, 1937 Location Yangtze River, off Nanjing, China Result USS Panay sunk The United States, the United Kingdom and France provide loan assistance for war supply contracts to China
Belligerents
United States	Japan
Commanders and leaders
Captain James J. Hughes	Shigeharu Murata Okumiya Masatake
Strength
1 gunboat 3 river tankers	13 aircraft
Casualties and losses
1 gunboat sunk 3 river tankers destroyed 3 Americans killed 48 Americans wounded	1 killed
Civilian casualties: 1 American killed, 5 Americans wounded; an unknown number of Chinese passengers killed and injured

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 December 12, 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The boats were part of the 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 the 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.^[1]

Public reaction was mixed in the U.S., with the president weighing various diplomatic and military responses only to settle for an apology and compensation.^[2]

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. The settlement mollified some of the U.S. anger, and newspapers called the matter closed.^[3]

However, camera footage taken during the attack showed Japanese aircraft flying so low near the Panay that the pilots' faces were visible, providing "potent evidence that the mistaken identity claim was not true."^[1]

The attack on the Panay was not an isolated case in the Battle of Nanjing. In addition to the Panay and her consort of three tankers, Japanese aircraft and land forces would attack a multitude of other vessels belonging to the Western powers along the Yangtze near Nanjing.^[4]