Panay incident

The Panay incident was a Japanese attack on the United States Navy gunboat Panay while she was anchored in the Yangtze River outside of Nanjing on December 12, 1937.Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The Japanese claimed that they did not see the United States flags painted on the deck of the gunboat, apologized and paid an indemnity. Nevertheless, the attack and the subsequent Allison incident in Nanjing [1] caused U.S. opinion to turn sharply against the Japanese.
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