CHAPTER 6: WHAT THE WORLD KNEW
144. Special meals of Nanking noodles: Morris-Suzuki, Showa, p. 34.
144. Durdin, a twenty-nine-year-old reporter from Houston: Frank Tillman Durdin, telephone interview with the author, January 1996.
144. Steele was an older correspondent: A. T. Steele Collection, Arizona State University Library.
144. McDaniel was perhaps the most daring: C. Yates McDaniel, “Nanking Horror Described in Diary of War Reporter,” Chicago Tribune, December 18, 1937.
144. Not only did they write riveting stories: The first American reporter to break the full story of the massacre was Archibald Steele. When the correspondents boarded the Oahu, the twenty-nine-year-old Durdin was unable to send any dispatches out by radio because the operator said it was against regulations. But somehow Steele got his stories out. “I think he slipped him a $50 bill or something!” Durdin exclaimed decades later in “Mr. Tillman Durdin’s Statement on the News Conference—Refuting the Distortions of His Reports on the Great Nanking Massacre by the Japanese Media” (Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China, August 1992, p. 66). “I was new and young, Steele was an old hand. So he scooped me on the story.”
145. During the massacre most were so frightened: C. Yates McDaniel, “Nanking Horror Described in Diary of War Reporter,” Chicago Tribune, December 18, 1937.
146. “I didn’t know where to take him or what to do”: “Mr. Tillman Durdin’s Statement on the News Conference—Refuting the Distortions of His Reports on the Great Nanking Massacre by the Japanese Media,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China, August 1992, p. 66.
146. “I could do nothing”: McDaniel, “Nanking Horror Described in Diary of War Reporter.”
146. Details of Durdin’s and Steele’s last day in Nanking can be found in their news reports, Fitch’s diary, and in “Mr. Tillman Durdin’s Statement on the News Conference.”
146. There were also two American newsreel men: For information on Norman Alley and Eric Mayell filming the attack, see “Camera Men Took Many Panay Pictures,” New York Times, December 19, 1937.
146. Though they survived the attack unscathed: Steele, “Chinese War Horror Pictured by Reporter.”
146. While hiding with the surviving Panay passengers: Hamilton Darby Perry, The Panay Incident: Prelude to Pearl Harbor (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969), p. 226.
146. On December 13, President Franklin D. Roosevelt: United Press story printed in Chicago Daily News, December 13, 1937.
146. Filthy, cold, and wearing only blankets: “Sinking of the U.S.S. Panay,” ch. 11 of Some Phases of the Sino-Japanese Conflict (July–December 1937), compiled from the records of the Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet, by Capt. W. A. Angwin (MC), USN, December 1938, Shanghai, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder P9–2/EF16#23, box 284, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.
147. When Alley’s and Mayell’s footage hit the theaters: United Press story printed in Chicago Daily News, December 29, 1937; 793.94/12177, General Records of the Department of State, record group 59, National Archives.
147. “The embassy cuts no ice”: Copy of George Fitch diary, enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attache E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations, March 7, 1938, National Archives.
147. In February they allowed a few American naval officers: Commanding Officer to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked the U.S.S. Oahu), intelligence summary for the week ending February 20, 1938, February 21, 1938, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder A8–21/FS#3, box 195, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.
147. As late as April: “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, no. 1794, translated May 4, 1938, boxes 1–4, record group 457, National Archives.
147. “The assumption I made”: “Deutsche Botschaft China,”document no. 214, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China. According to this report, the German diplomats returned to the city on January 9, 1938.
148. A machine cipher had protected: For information on the American Red Machine, see David Kahn, “Roosevelt, Magic and Ultra,” in Historians and Archivists, ed. George O. Kent (Fairfax, Va.: George Mason University Press, 1991).
148. “If they do return”: “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, no. 1171, record group 457, National Archives.
148. For example, Norman Alley: Perry, The Panay Incident, p. 232.
149. “utmost secrecy”: “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, box 2, record group 457, National Archives.
149. “If that is all the news coming out of Nanking”: Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 20, 1937.
149–“Carefully they were herded”: George Fitch diary, reprinted in
150. Reader’s Digest (July 1938).
150. “tremendously pleased”: George Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 115.
150. “spontaneous” celebrations: Reader’s Digest (July 1938).
150. “these acts were not repeated”: The Smythes, letter of March 8, 1938, box 228, record group 8, Yale Divinity School Library.
150. “the Imperial Army entered the city”: Archives of David Magee. A copy of the article can also be found in George Fitch diary, enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attache E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations, March 7, 1938, National Archives.
151. “Now the Japanese are trying to discredit”: James McCallum, diary entry for January 9, 1938 (copy), box 119, record group 119, Yale Divinity School Library, reprinted in Smalley, American Missionary Eyewitnesses to the Nanking Massacre, p. 43.
