I’ve alluded to the Panay Incident in past posts. It’s a story of what happens when a strong central government falls apart and leaves behind a power vacuum. I think history in this case illustrates what will happen in our near future and is an interesting story. Let’s tell the story now, on the 86th anniversary of the incident.
The US had a large presence of Americans in China in the form of Standard Oil and its refineries, wells, and subsequent employees, so they bought and maintained a fleet of oil tankers and several gunboats for their defense. The gunboats 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, in 1918.
The US had maintained a naval presence there since 1854 with the gunboat USS Susquehanna. The naval personnel stationed on the Yangtze river called themselves the “River Rats.” As the last of China’s Dynasties lost its grip on the country, the Asiatic fleet found itself in more and more armed conflict with warring factions that were left behind in the power vacuum. The US was one of those factions, and US companies were making money by picking over the corpse of what had been the Chinese dynasties.
During the following decades, warlordism was becoming a full-blown civil war between Mao Zedong’s Red Army and Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army, and this conflict would continue until the communists’ 1949 victory that established the ChiCom government we are all familiar with today.
In 1937, Japan entered the contest and invaded China, soon thereafter beginning the Nanking massacre. During the invasion of Nanking, Standard Oil was attempting to evacuate its employees, a mix of Chinese and US citizens. The evacuation was being carried out by one of those gunboats of the Yangtze Patrol, the USS Panay, and three of those oil tankers. The oil tankers were loaded with refugees, and all four vessels were prominently flying US flags, with the Panay even having a large flag painted on its topmost deck, for visibility from the air. The US Asiatic fleet had notified the Japanese army of their location and mission on the day before the incident.
While anchored upstream from Nanking, Panay and the three Standard Oil tankers were attacked by Japanese naval aircraft. The Panay was struck by two 130 pound bombs and was strafed by six fighters before sinking. Once the ship had gone to the bottom, the three Standard Oil tankers were also bombed and destroyed.
That wasn’t the end of the incident. While the Panay was sinking, Japanese aircraft, supported by gunboats of the Japanese Army, continued pouring fire into the boat and its lifeboats. Then the Japanese also fired upon and strafed the lifeboats and survivors who were trying to make it to shore.
As a result of the attack, three American sailors, the Captain of one of the oil tankers, dozens of Chinese Standard Oil employees, and an Italian journalist were killed. Another 43 sailors and 5 civilians were wounded.
Two US journalists, Norman Alley of Universal News and Eric Mayell of Movietone News, filmed part of the attack as well as the sinking of the ship in the middle of the river.
The Japanese claimed that they did not see the US flags being flown by the vessels, but that is not supported by the facts, and seemed to be a coordinated attack, as several other US and British vessels in the area were fired upon by shore batteries, aircraft, and gunboats of the Japanese armed forces on the same day.
Navy cryptographers had intercepted and decrypted traffic relating to the attacking planes which clearly indicated that they were under orders during the attack and that it had not been a mistake of any kind. This information was not released at the time because it would have revealed that the United States had broken Japanese Naval codes.
Fon Huffman, the last survivor of the incident, died in 2008. The last surviving Japanese pilot who participated in the attack was Kaname Harada, who died in 2016.
The entire incident was the result of world powers dividing up the riches of the collapsing Chinese dynasty. Expect the same thing to happen to a collapsing United States.
