394.115 Panay/191: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 23—1 p.m.]
676. Embassy’s 668, December 22, 11 a.m.23 The conference at the Embassy this evening lasted nearly three hours and consisted in a general statement by the Vice Minister of the Navy followed by detailed reports of the Japanese naval and military officers sent to Nanking to investigate the circumstances attendant upon the sinking of the Panay. The main effort of these officers was clearly to lay before me the evidence to prove their contention that the bombing and subsequent machine-gunning of the Panay and other American ships and survivors were mistakes and unintentional. The discrepancies between [Page 548] the factual reports of these officers and the information from American sources now before us do not appear to us to be great. A series of misunderstandings and consequent errors are freely admitted, while a detailed account was given of the circumstances which created the misunderstandings. We were all impressed, including the counselor and naval and military attachés who were present at the conference, with the apparently genuine desire and efforts of both Army and Navy to get at the undistorted facts.
Nevertheless the evidence offered still leaves undetermined whether the bombing of the Panay was done with deliberate disregard of consequences or was the result of negligence of some responsible person. The latter at least seems to be admitted as evidenced by the statements today of the Vice Minister of the Navy and the recall of Rear Admiral Mitsunami.
The Vice Minister said that the military forces had come into the trouble entirely as a result of the original naval mistake and that the Navy therefore accepted any blame which might be attached to Army units and desired to make complete amends including apology, indemnity and future guarantees against similar incident.
I closed the conference with a statement along the lines of paragraph 4 of Department’s telegram No. 368,24 clearly bringing out the pertinent points therein mentioned. I said that I was not yet in possession of the findings of the American naval court of inquiry nor of all of the evidence thereto presented but that I was in possession of some of the evidence and that while that evidence tallied in many respects with the Japanese reports it did not tally in all respects. I added that we are still awaiting a reply from the Japanese Government to our representations of December 14 and 17 because the Foreign Minister’s note of December 14 was not responsive to all of the points raised by my Government and I then laid stress with the utmost emphasis on the serious results which could flow from a repetition of the Panay incident or from any incident analogous to it.
Miss Arnold took full stenographic notes of the proceedings which will be forwarded by mail to the Department and by earliest means to the commander in chief in Shanghai when transcribed.
Repeated to Shanghai for the commander in chief.