Office of the Historian

793.94/14959: Telegram

The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan (Grew)

Washington, May 8, 1939—7 p.m.

119. Reference your 395, September 20, 8 p.m., 1937,60 and Department’s 221, September 21, 6 p.m., 1937;61 your 368, June 9, 7 p.m., 1938;61 and your 214, May 5, 5 p.m.62

The Department desires that, unless you perceive objection, you call on the Foreign Minister at your earliest opportunity and make emphatic representations, based primarily on humanitarian grounds and along the general lines indicated in the first three telegrams under reference, against the recent indiscriminate bombings of civilian populations of Chungking, Swatow, Ningpo, and Foochow. You may in your discretion state that, according to reports received by the American Government, destruction caused by the Japanese air raids was confined almost entirely to civilian lives and civilian property.

Repeated to Chungking and Peiping.

Hull
  1. Foreign Relations, 1937, vol. iii, p. 535.↩
  2. Not printed.↩
  3. Not printed.↩
  4. Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 596.↩