VERSIONS CONFLICT

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Volume 81, Issue 75, 21 December 1937, Page 5

VERSIONS CONFLICT

-Presa Assn.—

Tokio Admits Facts, Then Retracts JAPANESE PUBLIC IN THE DARK

(By Telegraph -

Uopyrightt*

(ECceived 21, 2.30 p.m.) SHANGHAI, Dec. 20. The Japanese findihgs in connection with the sinking of the Panay, announced at a Press conference by Major-General Harada, differed so widely from the survivors' accounts that one newspaperman asked whether Major-General Harada and the survivors were discussing the same incident. Among numerous points that correspondents disputed were Major-General Harada 's denial that army boats fired on the Panay and his assertion that the Panay was moving when she was bombed, as the survivors had reported that she was anchored. He said that the Panay* s guns fired three times at the motor launch, whicfi was not hit. The survivors declare that the gunboat 's guns remained covered with canvas throughout. A Washington message reports: It seems indicated that the United States will not readily accept the conflicting versions of the Panay machine-gunnmg from Tokio by tho Foreign Office and from Shanghai by Major-General Harada, admitting that Japanese troops fired on and boarded the Panay after the bombing but insisting that they aro uncertain whether the Panay first fired and later insisting that the Panay fired on the Japanese ashore and that the japanese did not machine-gun the Panay. The Times Tokio correspondent says: "Though withdrawing the denial that Japanese soldiera attacked and boarded the Panay, the Foreign Office spokesman said it was not established that they fired on the Panay 's officers. "No hint of this sinister aspect of the affair appeara in the Japanese Press. The shocking fact that Japanese naval airmen attacked a Japanese army launch cannot be divulged. The public only knows that an American guSiboat accidentally sank and that severai British gunboats were mistakenly fired upon in the heat of battle. Eear-Admiral Mitsunami's recall has still not been published. "Rumours that six naval airmen were court-martialled cannot be confifmed. "It is probable that some days will elapse before the English and American Notes are answered."