![]() ![]() ![]() In Europe, it’s commonly considered as beginning with Nazi Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939 in Asia, many see it as stretching even further back, to Imperial Japan’s invasion of China.Īll out war between the two Asian countries broke out in 1937, some six years after Japan invaded the Chinese province of Manchuria. ![]() While it’s common in America to think of World War II as starting with Roosevelt’s declaration the day after Pearl Harbor, elsewhere in the world it’s viewed it as starting much earlier. The war before the war, the Nanjing Massacre and an ill omen Indeed, some historians say that to fully understand that day of infamy in Pearl Harbor, one must first understand what happened to the USS Panay. It also sowed the seeds of Japan’s destruction in the global conflict that was to come, helping spur the massive increase in US naval spending that funded the very warships that would eventually put an end to Japan’s imperial ambitions. ![]() Had it done so the Panay’s place in history might not have been eclipsed by the events of four years later.īut historians say the sinking of the Panay was a seminal event nonetheless, one that helped turn the tide of American opinion in a conflict seen by some academics as the beginning of World War II in Asia – and one that strains relations between Tokyo and Beijing to this day. So shocking was the unprovoked attack that many expected Washington to declare war then and there. More than 40 servicemen and civilians were injured. Four people died – two US sailors, an oil tank captain, and an Italian journalist. Nine Nakajima fighters strafed the convoy with machine gun fire, shooting even on its lifeboats, while three Japanese Yokosuka rained down at least 20 132-pound bombs. On December 12, 1937, the US Navy river gunboat USS Panay and three Standard Oil Company tankers were evacuating American citizens trapped by Japan’s invasion of Nanjing when they were targeted from above in an attack that, like Pearl Harbor, stood out both for its mercilessness and the fact that the US and Japan were not at that time at war. The USS Panay, at right, of the US Navy's Yangtze River Patrol is shown in Shanghai, China, in 1928. ![]()
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