USS Panay's sinking on 12 December 1937 places the Yangtze Patrol inside the crisis politics of East Asia. Gunboats protected interests and nationals in China while operating amid active regional warfare. The shooting already taking place there made a sharper immediate threat than the rhetoric and military expansion alarming Europe. The episode helps explain why British and American attention before 1939 could not be reduced to Germany alone.
Notable Point · 19:19-20:37
Yangtze Patrol and Panay crisis warning
USS Panay turns river gunboats into a lesson about the number of 1930s Far East incidents that could have widened into war.