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The attack on the USS Liberty brings to mind a similar attack upon an American naval vessel that took place thirty years earlier. At the time, it too was blamed on a case of "mistaken identity".
The USS Panay, a navy gunboat that patrolled the Yangtze River protecting U.S. interests in China, was dispatched to the city of Nanking in the early part of December 1937. Her mission was to evacuate all remaining American and European dependents whose lives were in danger from the brutal assault the Japanese Army had launched against the city.
On December 11th, the Panay departed Nanking accompanied by three Standard Oil tankers. The following day, December 12th, the Panay dropped anchor approximately twenty-eight miles upriver from Nanking where it awaited the inevitable fall of the city. At 1:40 PM, three Japanese heavy bombers appeared in the sky above the Panay. Without warning, the planes began to drop bombs on the ship, one of which struck the Panay almost immediately. The blast incapacitated the Panay's captain and chief quartermaster. The crew of the Panay returned fire, but the arrangement of the ship's machine guns was such that it made it nearly impossible to elevate the guns to strike at the Japanese planes.
Six Japanese dive bombers now appeared and continued the assault on the Panay with more bombs and machine gun fire. The Japanese planes kept up the attack for over twenty minutes, inflicting so much damage on the Panay that it soon began to sink. As the crew began to abandon ship, the motorized shore boats that they were using to ferry people away were continuously strafed by the planes. With the Panay clearly done for, the Japanese turned their attention to the oil tankers, sinking two of the three ships in short order. At 3:49 PM, a Japanese army patrol boat arrived on scene, riddled the Panay with machine gun fire, then boarded the vessel. After a short inspection, they departed and the planes did as well. Five minutes later, the Panay sank to the bottom of the Yangtze River. When it was all over, two U.S. sailors were dead as well as one foreign journalist.
News of the incident quickly reached around the world and the expectation was that it might lead to the U.S. declaring war against Japan. However, the Japanese quickly offered a formal apology for the action against the Panay, claiming that the ship was mistaken for a Chinese naval vessel. After much diplomatic wrangling and promises of reparations, President Franklin Roosevelt accepted the Japanese apology and the matter was considered closed.
However, the "mistaken identity" claim was never really believed by most at the time. Aboard the Panay was a newsreel cameraman named Norman Alley, who worked for Universal News. Alley filmed the entire incident from beginning to end, and when released, his footage showed without a doubt that the Panay was clearly marked as a U.S. vessel. In addition, the Japanese were well aware that the Panay was in the vicinity of Nanking. A Japanese Army officer had even visited the Panay earlier in the day prior to the ship coming under attack, demanding information from the Americans about Chinese troop movements. Lastly, the incident was not isolated by any means. Four British gunboats on the Yangtze had also come under attack by Japanese planes and artillery the same day as the Panay.
Regardless, neither the American or British governments were eager or in any position to go to war against Japan in 1937. It was simply believed to be in all three nations best interest to forget the whole thing. Which is exactly what they and the rest of the world for that matter, promptly did.
Tony,
Thanks for recalling an important story from the past. Obviously, no American could have bought the Japanese story. I have a question for you from this same time period. I believe this appeared in one of the early Life Magazines, but it was a picture of an abandoned Chinese child sitting between the railroad tracks. It's a very sad, haunting picture, and probably as famous as some that Robert Capa took during the Spanish Civil War. Do you happen to know who might have taken the photo? I've looked on the internet and haven't found the answer.
There is much history that is either forgotten or overlooked. One is the tragic story of the 1782 Gnaddenhutten Massacre in Ohio. The backdrop to the story is that there had been several recent kidnappings and killings of white settlers in Pennsylvania. In retaliation, Captain David Williamson led a militia against a group of Christian Indians at the Moravian Church mission founded by David Zeisberger. Although the Moravian Indians declared their innocence in the attacks, Williamson had the Indians rounded up and separated by gender. The militia voted to execute the Indians the following morning. The Indians were informed of their impending fate and spent the evening singing hymns and praying. The next day twenty-eight men, twenty-nine women and thirty-nine children were executed. Two survived the slaughter and told their story to the Moravian missionaries and fellow Christian Indians. Gnaddenhutten is located in Tuscarawas County in eastern Ohio and is the oldest existing settlement in Ohio. A memorial was established to mark the event.
There must be many more bits of obscure history. I hope others will add more.
Not forgotten but certainly de-emphasized WW2...
German resistance to Hitler
French Collaboration with the Nazis
South American replacement and protection of Nazis
Japanese spy activity in Hawaii and Asia
Japanese and German accounts of surviving the utterly devastating bombing raids
German Refugees of WW2
Treatment of Koreans soldiers by the Japanese and Ukrainian, Lithuanians, and Latvians by the Germans such that they were more hardcore than the Japanese and Germans themselves.
Non WW2...
Differences between French-Indian and British-Indian alliances and tactics in leading up through the French & Indian War.
Sorry...more like a laundry list of readings to fill the considerable gaps in my knowledge...
Just picked up a book today called "The Forgotten 500" (published 2 years ago) which is about US airmen that were shot down over Yugoslavia during WW2 and their rescue. Some of you may have read the book, but I'm looking forward to reading it myself. The book was introduced to me by a friend who's family is from there.
Gregory A. Freeman (http://www.gregoryafreeman.com/500.html - broken link)
The following was taken from the author Gregory Freeman's website.
One of the last untold stories of World War II is also one of the greatest - a story of adventure, daring, danger and heroics, followed by a web of conspiracy, lies, and coverup. THE FORGOTTEN 500 is one of the greatest rescue and escape stories ever, but hardly anyone has heard about it. And that's by design. The U.S., British, and Yugoslav governments hid details of this story for decades, purposefully denying credit to the heroic rescuers and the foreign ally who gave his life to help allied airmen as they were hunted down by Nazis in the hills of Yugoslavia.
THE FORGOTTEN 500 tells the story of Operation Halyard in 1944, the largest rescue ever of downed American airmen. More than 500 U.S. airmen were rescued, along with some from other countries, all right under the noses of the Germans, and mostly in broad daylight. The mission was a complete success - the kind that should have been trumpeted in news reels and on the front page. (By comparison, the famed escape of allied prisoners from a German POW camp portrayed in the movie "The Great Escape" involved 200 men, and only 76 were successful.)
It is a little known episode that started with one edge-of-your seat rescue in August 1944, followed by a series of additional rescues in the following months. American agents from the OSS, the precursor of the CIA, worked with a Serbian guerilla, General Draza Mihailovich, to carry out the huge, ultra-secret rescue mission.
THE FORGOTTEN 500 weaves together the tales of a dozen young airmen shot down in the hills of Yugoslavia during bombing runs, and the five secret agents who conducted their amazing rescue. These are the stories of young men who were eager to join the war and fight the Germans, even finding excitement in the often deadly trips from Italy to bomb German oil fields in Romania, but who found themselves parachuting out of crippled planes and into the arms of strange, rough looking villagers in a country they knew nothing about. They soon found out that the local Serbs were willing to sacrifice their own lives to keep the downed airmen out of German hands, but they still wondered if anyone was coming for them or if they would spend the rest of the war hiding from German patrols and barely surviving on goat's milk and bread made with hay to make it more filling.
When OSS agents in Italy heard of the stranded airmen, they began planning an elaborate and previously unheard of rescue - the Americans would send in a fleet of C-47 cargo planes to land in the hills of Yugoslavia, behind enemy lines, to pluck out hundreds of airmen. It was audacious and risky beyond belief, but there was no other way to get those boys out of German territory. The list of challenges and potential problems seemed never ending: the airmen had to evade capture until the rescue could be organized, they had to build an airstrip large enough for C-47s without any tools and without the Germans finding out, and then the planes had to make it in and out without being shot down.
Long silenced by the governments of several nations, the full story of Operation Halyard and the young men who risked everything for their fellow soldiers is revealed for the first time in this book.
[LEFT]
Tony,
Thanks for recalling an important story from the past. Obviously, no American could have bought the Japanese story. I have a question for you from this same time period. I believe this appeared in one of the early Life Magazines, but it was a picture of an abandoned Chinese child sitting between the railroad tracks. It's a very sad, haunting picture, and probably as famous as some that Robert Capa took during the Spanish Civil War. Do you happen to know who might have taken the photo? I've looked on the internet and haven't found the answer.
Actually yes, I can answer that for you. The image that you are referring to is the work of H.S. Wong. Wong was a photographer, newsreel cameraman and the Shanghai Bureau Chief for Hearst News. Wong was quite well known at the time, and a good portion of the film footage of the Sino-Japanese War that was shown worldwide can be attributed to him. This iconic shot appeared in both Life and Look magazines, all Hearst news publications, and countless newsreels in the U.S. and abroad.
The photo (more specifically a still frame of a newsreel) was taken on August 28, 1937 at the Shanghai South Railway Station after a Japanese air raid. The station was apparently not the target, but rather a Nationalist Chinese arsenal that was two miles away. The mistake led to the deaths of about 1,500 Chinese civilians, including the child's mother.
There are some who have questioned the legitimacy of the image, stating that it was in fact partially staged. They claim that the injured child was put between the railroad tracks by H.S. Wong's assistant and then filmed. However, if you look at the image closely you will see that the child isn't between the railroad tracks at all. It is instead an illusion created by the angle the shot was taken from. The child is actually up on the railway platform where his father placed him, which is exactly what H.S. Wong stated when asked about how the image came to be.
Regardless, there is little doubt that Japanese conduct in China was borderline barbaric. Photos like this simply reinforced what everyone already knew.
I just saw this picture in a fantastic book I'm reading "Stillwell and the American Experiance in China 1911-1945" by Barbara Tuchman.
"Vinegar Joe".. his life and the era between the First and Second War. I am amazed after reading each page and it goes along way to explaining our long relationship with China and the actions of the Japanese leading up to the war. Alot of 'foot-dragging' from all the major countries
Actually yes, I can answer that for you. The image that you are referring to is the work of H.S. Wong. Wong was a photographer, newsreel cameraman and the Shanghai Bureau Chief for Hearst News. Wong was quite well known at the time, and a good portion of the film footage of the Sino-Japanese War that was shown worldwide can be attributed to him. This iconic shot appeared in both Life and Look magazines, all Hearst news publications, and countless newsreels in the U.S. and abroad.
The photo (more specifically a still frame of a newsreel) was taken on August 28, 1937 at the Shanghai South Railway Station after a Japanese air raid. The station was apparently not the target, but rather a Nationalist Chinese arsenal that was two miles away. The mistake led to the deaths of about 1,500 Chinese civilians, including the child's mother.
There are some who have questioned the legitimacy of the image, stating that it was in fact partially staged. They claim that the injured child was put between the railroad tracks by H.S. Wong's assistant and then filmed. However, if you look at the image closely you will see that the child isn't between the railroad tracks at all. It is instead an illusion created by the angle the shot was taken from. The child is actually up on the railway platform where his father placed him, which is exactly what H.S. Wong stated when asked about how the image came to be.
Regardless, there is little doubt that Japanese conduct in China was borderline barbaric. Photos like this simply reinforced what everyone already knew.
Tony,
You have certainly impressed me with your knowledge and memory! Thanks for clearing that up. I first saw the picture of the Chinese child when I was 7 or 8 years old. In photojournalism history, it must rank with photos like Robert Capa's "Falling Soldier" and Dorthea Lange's "Migrant Mother." I wasn't aware of the claim that Wong staged the shot. Apparently, this has also been a charge made about Capa's "Falling Soldier." Nevertheless, they are images that never leave one's mind. Thanks for the interesting and informative commentary.
one of the most heartbreaking ones i've seen was of a naked korean or vietnamese child that was stammering his feet and wailing loudly by the side of his dead mother and his sister standing next. his profound shock and grief on his face is something i will never forget. i can just only imagine how deep the wounds and trauma of war is on such a young child and trying to make sense of it all. another is of a starving african baby that surrounded by a vulture waiting for it to die.
war is such a horrible thing, it damages not onlybodies but the souls of so many countless people and destroys their lives. i really hope the world can one day move past it all. i really hope we can learn from history and find a way to make a better world.
The Battle of Isandlwana, a British defeat, has been put in the shadow of history by another event on that day, then British defensive gem of a victory at the nearby Battle of Rourke's Drift.
Mountain Meadows massacre was truly a horrible event -- to think that children were murdered in cold blood....
There's a fantastic book called We Band of Angels that looks at the first American female POWS ever captured by the enemy -- a group of Army and Navy nurses were captured by the Japanese after the fall of the Philippines in 1942. Rarely mentioned in WWII history.
Items of mostly forgotten history I have noted in recent years:
* White riots in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1921 that destroyed the affluent black section of town called Greenwood ( TULSA RACE RIOT ); Richard Lloyd Jones, a cousin of Frank Lloyd Wright, was publisher of the Tulsa Tribune, the newspaper that fanned the flames of prejudice that led to this disaster.
* Story of Henry Rawlinson and the Behistun inscription in today's Iran ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Behistun_Inscription ), which is to cuneiform writing what the Rosetta Stone was to Egyptian hieroglyphics
* Britain's Great Storm of 1703, the only hurricane to strike England (100+ mph winds in London!) in recorded history
* Wilfred Burchett's report out of Hiroshima ( JapanFocus )
n some ways parts of Oregon are still very much the Wild West. There are still places where horses tied up in front of stores in the “downtown” is not even commented upon. The independent spirit is far from dead as ranchers still attempt to eek out a living on land their ancestors first homesteaded on.
First incorporated in 1908, the town of Copperfield was hands down Oregon’s rowdiest town. A post office was established about 75 miles north east of Baker City on July 26th, 1899. The location is now known as Oxbow and sits on the Snake River near Oxbow Reservoir.
In the late 1800’s the town served as a supply depot for local miners. The town most likely had a couple of saloons and probably a bordello.
By 1913 between E.H. Harriman’s rail road project and the dam being built on the Snake River nearby, the town had become the most lawless location in Oregon. With over 1000 citizens the Mayor and City Council owned the local Saloons. Of Law Enforcement, there was none. It was said that the local Marshall was ordered by the Mayor to allow the wild Saturday night to dawn parties.
Daily fights that lasted an hour each were common between the railroad workers and the dam workers. The could use rocks, knives and bottles, but guns and rattlesnakes were forbidden. Roulette wheels and gambling were common in every tavern and hotel.
But the town was already dyeing a slow death by 1913 as the mining business had dried up long ago. Both the dam and railroad projects had finished and with them the exodus of hundreds of workers. The population had dropped from 1200 to 84 in the space of a few months. This simply increased the problems as the saloon owners attempted to attract every last drinking man possible into their establishments. Four saloons were burned down in obvious arson attempts. Mayor A.H. Stewart and one of the other city council members who both owned saloons conspired against Martin Knezevich to close his saloon down.
Worse yet in an attempt to make money the saloon owners even served minors. This outraged local mothers and rancher women at the behast of Martin Knezevich who had been reduced to selling soda pop due to problems in “following the liquor laws” petitioned Governor Oswald West. Nearly half the town folk wrote him, including some of the young boys who had been served.
An ardent Prohibitionist himself, Governor West was outraged. He first pleaded with Ed Rand who was the Baker County Sheriff to clean up the town. Sheriff Rand declined stating that he did not have the power to close down the saloons without a proper trial and to do so would be unconstitutional. District Attorney C. T. Godwin supported Sheriff Rand in his decision. Both men had already tried to clean up the town but failed due to a lack of evidence.
Next he telegramed the city Mayor and ordered him to close the saloons by Christmas Day, 1913. Or else he might go to Copperfield himself “to shoot a bartender,” and fulfill a long time desire. The town ignored him.
By the end of the year, Governor West was most likely exasperated with the situation and called upon his secret weapon.
Miss Fern Hobbs moved to Hillsboro Oregon and put her younger brother and sister through school while she worked. She worked as private secretary to the president of the Title Guarantee and Trust Company which failed while she worked there. Secretary of State Ben Olcott who worked with the failing bank to protect the State’s assets noted Miss Hobbs loyalty and efficiency.
After the failure of the bank, she worked for J. Wesley Ladd (who’s brother William S. Ladd created Ladd’s addition in Portland) as a Governess. On the side she continued to work as a secretary and even studied law. She graduated in 1913 from the Willamette University College of Law and became the first female lawyer in Oregon.
Some time after loosing her job at the bank and before she got her degree, Ben Olcott recommended her services as a stenographer to Governor Oswald. He was so impressed with her abilities that he hired her as his private secretary. At $3000 a year, she became the highest paid woman in public services in the United States.
He immediately put her in charge of his anti-vice movement. During 1912 she interviewed a variety of underworld characters and worked to further the Governors visions. By the time the Copperfield incident had come up, Miss Hobbs had just returned from Washington D.C. where she had negotiated a land dispute between Oregon State and the Federal Government.
So along with some of the “bravest and toughest militiamen in Oregon” who were dressed in civilian clothes boarded the train for Burns then on to Copperfield. All the National Guardsmen were veterans the Philippines, and their leader Lieutenant Colonel Berton K. Lawson was warden of the state’s prison. Their presence was kept a secret by everyone involved.
Mayor Stewart of Copperfield who was alerted of her coming declared that the town would give her a grand reception so that she would find nothing wrong. They decorated the town with ribbons and flowers.
On the afternoon of January 3rd, 1914 Miss Fern Hobbs stepped down from the Baker-Copperfield train. Her arrival was greeted by the town toughs and assorted gamblers who had come to laugh at her. Unfortunately for them, the six National Guardsmen disembarked directly after her.
The no doubt perturbed Mayor Stewart invited her up the hill to a dance hall. Everyone present followed where she stepped up to the bandstand, pulled out a paper and began to read:
The townspeople stood stunned at such a thing. The ever polite Miss Hobbs asked them to resign. Mayor Stewart calmly arose from his seat and declared that he would not do so. The rest of the city council followed and declared that they would not close their saloons on the advice of James Nichols, a law partner of District Attorney Godwin
With his no doubt years of practice at whipping recruits into shape, and his stint in the prison, Lieutenant Colonel Lawson ordered the men to unbuckle the holsters of their guns. He strode to the front of the room and tacked a proclamation of martial law on the wall.
The townsmen quietly relinquished their weapons at the door. Miss Hobbs returned on the 4:00 PM train to Baker, spent the night in the Geiser Grand Hotel and returned to Portland the next day.
In the meantime Lawson and his men locked up the saloons (no word if they locked up Martin Knezevich’s too,) and posted guards.
The next morning Attorney Nicolas obtained an injunction against the Govenor’s actions. Col. Lawson received the telegram informing him of such. It ordered himself, Miss Hobbs and Governor west to appear in the Baker County Court to explain what right they had to close the saloons.
In anger Lawson ripped the telegram into shreds and seized the town depot to censor telephone and telegraph messages. He then wired for more troops based on a erroneous report by the Oregonian that Sheriff Rand was putting together a posse. Sheriff Rand later disavowed the news saying he would not risk any lives over this matter. But Governor West requested a hearing to remove him from office and appointed Miss Hobbs to represent the State as special counsel.
The next day ten (or twenty depending on the source) more soldiers arrived in the town. They immediately began packing up all the liquor in town, including all the gambling equipment and even two “obscene” paintings that had been patriotically draped with American flags in one of the saloons. It was all loaded into a boxcar and sent to the Baker City dump where it was later burned. Over 10,000 pounds of alcohol were confiscated.
On January 8th 1914, Sheriff Rand and a Portland attorney representing Governor West during a meeting in nearby Huntington reached an agreement to reduce the number of National Guardsmen to 4. Circuit Judge Anderson ruled on the 19th of the same month that the courts could not interfere with the Governor’s right to declare martial law.
The saloon owners later filed in court against the Governor to recover $8000 for lost liquor but the Baker County Circuit Court and the Oregon Supreme court both ruled that Governor West was within his rights. Soon afterwards the remaining saloons were burned down, no one came to their rescue and the town continued to die it’s slow death.
The Post Office finally closed July 15th, 1927.
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