WAR IN CHINA: Regrets

Hissing politely, hat in hand, hundreds of worried Japanese citizens stopped everyone who looked to them like a U. S. citizen on the streets of Tokyo last week to offer their personal apologies for the sinking of the U. S. gunboat Panay (TIME, Dec. 20). This latest outburst of runaway Japanese militarism gave the Japanese public a sudden revealing picture of the irresponsibility of Japanese officers in China, and threatened to do the one thing that intelligent Japanese statesmen fear—drive the U. S. to take forceful action.

Japan's Navy Minister, Admiral Mitsumasa Yonai, was called on the carpet before his Emperor to explain the Panay bombing and, as senior Japanese naval officer responsible under the commander in chief on the Nanking front, Rear Admiral Teizo Mitsunami, 48, was recalled to Japan in disgrace. From staff officers in Shanghai came fervent but indefinite suggestions of a voluntary subscription among Japanese sailors for the relief of the Panay's victims and an official salute was delivered over the Panay's watery grave. The Nichi Nichi raised a fund of 3,466 yen ($1,008) in one day, printed the suggestion that an exact replica of the Panay be built for the U. S. At the U. S. Embassy a 30-year-old Japanese woman called in ceremonial kimono, whipped out a long pair of scissors, snipped off all her hair, wrapped it up with a gold & silver cord with a white carnation and handed it to the startled secretary of Ambassador Joseph Grew.

Disgraced Admiral Mitsunami, incidentally, is typical of the Japajingo officers who made the Panay incident possible. Youngest of Japan's rear admirals, he received his appointment only on December 1, and until the beginning of the war had never served outside Japanese waters. An aviator since 1923, he has been flying instructor for many years, served as commander of the 26,900-ton aircraft carrier Kaga, from 1934 to 1936. The efficacy of air bombardment is part of his religion.

Meanwhile, survivors of the Panay reached Shanghai on her sister ship the Oahu, bringing with them a story backed by newsreel photographs that brought the entire crisis to an even sharper peak.

On the fatal day, while the little Panay anchored in the Yangtze 27 miles above Nanking, she was boarded by a Japanese officer and several soldiers who, if they were not aware of her identity when they came aboard, were in no misapprehension when they left. At 1130 p. m. a squadron of planes, easily identified as Japanese by the red balls on their wings, appeared and dropped their first bomb. A direct hit just forward of the bridge put the Panay's only antiaircraft gun out of action, slammed Lieut. Commander Hughes against the bridge wheel, broke his leg, and blew all the clothes off Lieutenant D. H. Biwerse of Sheboygan, Wis. but left him uninjured.

In spite of seven U. S. flags flying from the Panay and painted on her, the Japanese bombers might have made a mistake, but when they dived and bombed her a second time the Panay's crew could no longer believe it. They manned the machine guns on deck and began to fire. Respecting the machine guns, the planes did not come close enough to score direct hits on their third and fourth returns but their bombs struck alongside, puncturing her near the water and hastening her sinking.