Tue Naval section of the Imperial Headquarters issued a statement today on the "elreumstanees In connection with the Incidents.in which the USS. Panay and British gunboats and vessels were bombed by Jopanese naval aeroplanes."
Information was received at noon on December 12, the statement: decares, that fen steamers and a number of junks, carrying aboard many re-nants of the defeated Chinese forees, were proceeding up stream on the Yangize River to points fifteen to 25 miles from Nanking.
(On receipt of'this Information, part of the Japanese alr forces co-operate ing with the ground forees at Nanking was immediately despatched to altaek the fleeing Chinese.
At about 2.30 the same afternoon, [Japanese aeroplanes discovered two large and several small-sized steam~ fers and three vessels, apparently gunboats, about fifteen miles above Nanking. The Japanese "planes bomb-the larg steamers, while the three vessels, resembling gunboats, were fired on by Japanese planes, ~The British naval authorities the sine night received information that vessels attacked were HMS. Cricket, H.MS. Scarab and a British steamer, The Commander-In-Chief of the China Sea Fleet then ordered his Chief-of-Sta to call on the British navel authorities to express apologies,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.