793.94/16983: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 24—12:45 p.m.]
294. Two groups numbering about 62 Japanese planes this afternoon bombed the central business and residential district of Chungking as well as the northern suburb Kiangpeh. Civilian casualties probably will number about 50 persons. Property damage, once again largely private in character, does not appear to be extensive though demolition and incendiary bombs were dropped over a wide area. Three bombs fell in the compound of the British Embassy damaging the office building and residences but there were no casualties.
All Americans appear to be safe. So far as is known, damage to American-owned property appears to have been limited to the partial destruction of a compound wall of the Lewis Memorial Institutional Church of the American Methodist Mission.84
Sent to the Department. Repeated to Peiping, Hankow, Shanghai. Shanghai please relay to Tokyo.
- For subsequent destruction of this property, see note No. 1630, from the American Ambassador in Japan to the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs, September 13, Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, Vol. i, p. 695.↩