- [Narrator] Yangtze River, December 12th, 1937.
The Japanese dive bomber lets its payload go.
The bomb smashing into the bow
of US Navy vessel, USS Panay,
as sailors run to stations in disbelief.
The US and Japan are not at war.
Part of the US Navy's Asiatic squadron,
Panay is steaming away
from the Chinese Nationalists Capital of Nanking
where it had evacuated civilians
just before the city fell to the Japanese army.
Now, it's escorting three standard oil tankers
away from the burning city,
fleeing reports of mass murder.
Sailors run to shelter.
One, still in his underwear,
sprays machine gun fire at the fighters strafing the vessel.
The captain is grievously wounded
and the vessel's second officer takes command.
Though moments later,
shrapnel rips open his throat.
He can't speak to issue orders,
so he writes it on the bulkhead
with his own blood, Abandon ship.
(light upbeat music)
Thanks so much to World Anvil
for helping us forge today's historical tale.
It's December 18th,
and in Tokyo, US ambassador to Japan, Joseph Grew,
is trying to prevent a war.
Accord signed after the Boxer Rebellion
had allowed US Navy gunboats like the USS Panay
to patrol Chinese rivers
and protect American commerce
to attack one violated international law.
And the details did not look good.
Japanese planes had sunk the Panay,
along with the three standard oil tanker ships,
killing three Americans and wounding 48.
They'd even machine gunned the lifeboats.
This, despite the fact
that the Panay had radioed its position
to Japanese forces
and marked itself with three large American flags.
In the US, the public mood was one of indignation.
While there was also anger at Japan
for what was being called The Rape of Nanking,
the public treated the attack on the Panay
as an even worser front particularly
because they saw it firsthand.
Most of the evacuees from Nanking had been journalists
and one filmed the attack from the Panay's deck.
Ambassador Grew worried that if it escalates,
this incident could lead to war.
It felt like the USS Maine all over again,
especially since Grew's boss,
President Franklin Roosevelt was far more willing
than his predecessors to confront
what he privately called the bandit nations
of Germany, Japan, and Italy.
In October, Roosevelt had even given a speech
calling for a quarantine of aggressive nations,
arguing that America should take an active hand
in containing the epidemic of world lawlessness.
But Roosevelt had suffered
such an isolationist backlash against that speech,
that even he hoped to diffuse the Panay situation
as quickly as possible.
So Grew reached out to contacts
in Japan's civilian government and business community,
as well as retired Admiral Nomura
who was connected to foreign policy circles.
But no one seemed to know why the Panay had been attacked.
Some said it was a mistake,
while others said it might be a plot
by low-level Japanese officers
to scare American forces out of China.
American radio intercepts
suggested it was intentional.
But Grew also found Japanese leaders receptive
to his demand for an apology.
Both Japan's government and public were mortified
over the incident,
and within days,
the American Embassy in Tokyo
was besieged by letters of apology from Japanese citizens,
including school children
along with envelopes stuffed with yen for the victims.
On December 23rd,
a Japanese delegation arrives at the US Embassy
to meet with Grew.
They take full responsibility
and designate a high-ranking naval officer
to present a formal apology.
In addition, they'll pay an indemnity
of over $2 million to compensate the United States
for the Panay and the three tankers.
Yet they maintained that the attack
was a case of misidentification.
A pretty ludicrous position given the facts,
but if it prevents a war,
then it's a compromise Grew and Roosevelt
are willing to make.
The apology arrives in Washington on Christmas Day,
the fury over the attack diffused by the holiday season.
In Tokyo, Japanese diplomats
breathe a sigh of relief,
for as much as Grew and Roosevelt want to avoid war,
the Japanese government can't afford more complications
in its Chinese quagmire.
Despite early victories,
it was becoming clear that in invading China,
Japan had bitten off more than it could chew.
The central government hadn't planned
or even formally declared this war,
it was capitulated into it
by the actions of mid-level army officers,
and there was no overall strategic plan
or even an obvious goal.
Instead, there were nebulous assertions
about northern expansion and seizing resources,
but the truth was it was costing far more resources
than it brought in,
and the army's brazen massacres.
Like at Nanking,
we're wrecking Japanese diplomatic efforts,
which was dangerous.
Because the Chinese theater
was a mess of international forces,
none of which Japan could afford to antagonize.
First, there were American and British River gunboats
like Panay, literally sailing through the conflict.
Then Germany was present too.
Despite being part of an anti-communist pact with Japan,
it sold the Chinese nationalists equipment
and provided military advisors.
Meanwhile, the Soviet Union,
wanting to support Mao's communists,
had sent Soviet planes and pilots
to shore up China's weak air forces
and bombed Japanese bases,
which was double scary,
since that risk Japan's greatest fear,
war with the Soviet Union.
And then, there was the United States itself,
which was playing both sides.
Popular sympathy in the US
lays solidly with China,
seeing it as a victim of Japanese aggression.
And the US government supported the nationalists' cause
with supplies routed through French Indochina.
Yet paradoxically, America also supplied Japan
with the high-grade fuel oil
Japanese ships and planes used
to pound the nationalist forces.
Any one of these powers
risk getting dragged into the conflict.
And despite what some militarists fanatics insisted,
Japan could not simultaneously fight
both a Western power and China.
A thing that only became more clear
as 1938 and 1939 dragged on,
and Japan and China cut negotiations.
Now, it seemed the only path Japan had for victory
was to conquer China.
Japanese forces kept advancing,
but now it was clear
that nationalist leader, Chiang Kai-shek,
was intentionally giving up territory
using the vastness of his country against them,
so they had to commit more resources into holding it.
And while the Japanese army was spread increasingly thin,
they also had to deal with Maoist guerrillas,
which sabotaged coal mines and other resources.
Then in July, 1939,
the most terrifying thing of all occurred.
A group of militarists officers
hosted near the border with Mongolia,
made a unsanctioned border incursion
against the Soviets,
hoping to trigger a conflict
that would let Japan seize Siberia.
Instead, the Soviets encircled and smashed
the Japanese forces,
making planners question
whether Japan could truly stand up
to the full might of a Western power.
Japanese diplomats, including Admiral Nomura,
hastily concluded the conflict
by recognizing the Soviet view of border claims.
But it wasn't even a month
before yet another diplomatic crisis gripped Tokyo,
when Germany and the Soviet Union
announced a non-aggression pact.
Now, that was, as geopolitical scholars term it,
a real dick move.
The anti-communist treaty
was supposed to align Japan and Germany
against the Soviets.
And now, without even telling Japan,
Germany had concluded an agreement
that gave the USSR peace on its western border,
which meant that these Soviets
could, theoretically, turn all their attention
toward invading Manchuria and Japan.
Y'all, I'm starting to feel like this Hitler guy
might be a little untrustworthy, huh.
Meanwhile, shipments of American aircraft parts
were suddenly drying up.
It turned out that Roosevelt,
while not making any public announcement,
had privately requested American aircraft manufacturers
to stop selling to Japan.
Then in July of 1939,
Roosevelt escalated
by canceling America's commercial treaty with Japan,
effective January, 1940.
Not only would this be a commercial hit,
but it removed the legal protections
against the United States declaring an embargo.
"What would happen?"
Japanese officials began to ask,
"If he shut off our oil?"
Yet in that dark period,
a window of opportunity opened.
Germany invaded Poland in 1939,
plunging Europe into war,
and by June, 1940,
had swept across France and the Netherlands.
So while Japan's northern expansion strategy
favored by the Army had clearly failed
because China was a quagmire
and the Soviets too dangerous,
the imperial Japanese Navy's rival strategy
of striking down into Southeast Asia
to seize the rubber-producing regions of British Malaya
and the oil fields of the Dutch East Indies
was now suddenly possible.
With the English, French, and Dutch
busy fighting Germany,
they wouldn't be reinforcing their positions
halfway around the world.
So for a brief time,
the colonies of Asia appeared up for grabs.
Japan could sweep in fast,
just as Germany had overrun France.
But that window might not be open for long.
Heck, Germany itself might snap them up.
The rally and cry, Don't miss the bus,
echoed throughout the government,
capturing the feeling of escalation and frantic activity.
Japan's first step, it was decided,
would be to move into French Indochina,
and cut the Western supply lines to nationalist China.
And so as Nomura took a ship for Washington
as his country's new ambassador,
and Roosevelt mauled more sanctions,
Japan drew up troops on the border with French Indochina,
preparing for its third undeclared war in three years.
A war that would put it on a collision course
with the United States.
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Thanks so much for being legendary patrons.
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