Panay Incident
Panay Incident (1937).An important, if short‐lived, crisis in U.S.‐Japanese relations occurred in the 1930s as Japan launched the Second Sino‐Japanese War in July 1937. The Japanese had quickly conquered Beijing, Shanghai, and Nanjing, and blockaded the coastline. On 12 December 1937, Japanese warplanes sank the U.S. Navy's gunboat Panay on the Yangtze River, killing three Americans and wounding nearly thirty. In the daylight attack, many of the escaping survivors were repeatedly machine‐gunned. Three Standard Oil tankers being convoyed by the Panay were also sunk.
President Franklin D. Roosevelt's advisers believed Japanese officers in China had authorized the attack on the clearly marked ships, and the president and his cabinet considered an embargo and possible naval action. However, while condemning the attack, congressional and press opinion concluded that no vital American...
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