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Kweilin incident... 1st civilian airliner shot down...
Kweilin incident... 1st civilian airliner shot down...
Item # 697862
August 25, 1938
THE NEW YORK TIMES, August 25, 1938
* Kweilin incident - Douglas DC-2 airliner
* First civilian airplane to be shot down in history
The top of the front page has a two column heading: "Tokyo Planes Shoot Down Airliner; Machine-Gun 19 Trying to Flee" with subhead. (see) Always nice to have notable events in history reported in this World famous publication.
Complete with all 38 pages, light toning at the margins, generally nice.
wikipedia notes: The Kweilin incident occurred on August 24, 1938 when a Douglas DC-2 airliner (the Kweilin) carrying 18 passengers and crew was destroyed by Japanese aircraft in China. There were fourteen fatalities. It was the first civilian airliner in history to be shot down by hostile aircraft. The pilot was American and the crew and passengers Chinese. As it was unprecedented for a civilian aircraft to be attacked, there was international diplomatic outrage over the incident. In the United States, it helped solidify the popular view that Japan was morally wrong in their war against China, but the incident was not enough to spur the US into action against Japan despite Chinese entreaties. The Kweilin was re-built, and destroyed by the Japanese a second time two years later.
Category: The 20th Century
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