USS Panay Incident

Date: December 12, 1937 • Location: Gushu, China

Second Sino-Japanese War: USS Panay incident: Japanese aircraft bomb and sink U.S. gunboat USS Panay on the Yangtze river in China.

The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan and its puppet states between 1937 and 1945, following a period of conflict localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is often regarded as the beginning of World War II in Asia, as the wars became heavily intertwined after Japan attacked the United States. It was the largest Asian war in the 20th century.