From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The USS Panay incident was a Japanese attack on the American gunboat Panay while it was anchored in the Yangtze River outside Nanking (now spelled Nanjing), China on 12 December 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The Japanese claimed that they did not see the American flags painted on the deck of the gunboat, apologized, and paid an indemnity. Nevertheless, the attack and the subsequent Allison incident in Nanking caused US opinion to turn against the Japanese. Fon Huffman, the last survivor of the incident, died in 2008.[1]
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Panay_incident
It took 8 years, but Togo and company got what was coming to them.
My grandfather, by family oral tradition, was assigned onboard the US gunboat (they were not really even a full “warship” for that time) behind the Panay when she was bombed by the Japanese.
He got his revenge though: Later in the war, he was on a merchant, sailing behind the Japanese battleships shelling the US carriers at Letye Gulf.... But he was on the opposite horizon, and they were shooting the other way.
Thanks.
I’m no apologist for the Japanese, but Theodore Roosevelt’s deal with the Japanese after the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 has to be included with any discussion regarding the Panay (and even Pearl Harbor). Japan never imagined they could beat the US in a war; they had to hope for a diplomatic resolution before they were destroyed by us.