REMEMBER NANKING!!!!! WHEN YOU KILL THE INNOCENT GOD DOESN'T FORGET AND HE WILL TAKE YOURS AS PAYMENT OF DEBT!!!

Nanking Massacre
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Rape of Nanking" redirects here. For Iris Chang's book, see The Rape of Nanking (book).
"Nankin Jiken" redirects here. For the 1927 Nankin Jiken, see Nanjing Incident.Nanking Massacre

Massacre victims on the shore of Yangtze River with a Japanese soldier standing nearby
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese 南京大屠殺
Simplified Chinese 南京大屠杀
[show]
Transliterations

Japanes​e name
Kanji 南京大虐殺
[show]
Transliterations

Nank​ing Massacrev · d · e
Battle of Nanking (1937)
Nanking Safety Zone

International Committee for Nanking Safety Zone
Japanese war crimes
Contest to kill 100 people using a sword

International Military Tribunal for the Far East Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal
Historiography of the Nanking Massacre
Nanking Massacre denial

Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall
Japanese history textbook controversies
Films
The Battle of China
Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre
City of Life and Death
Don't Cry, Nanking
John Rabe
Nanking
Tokyo Trial
The Truth about Nanjing
Books
American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking
The Good Man of Nanking
The Rape of Nanking
Tokyo


The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a mass murder and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing (Nanking), the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second Sino-Japanese War. During this period, up to hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians and disarmed soldiers were murdered and 20,000–80,000 women were raped[1] by soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army.[2][3][4]

The massacre remains a contentious political issue, as various aspects of it have been disputed by some historical revisionists and Japanese nationalists,[3] who have claimed that the massacre has been either exaggerated or wholly fabricated for propaganda purposes. As a result of the nationalist efforts to deny or rationalize the war crimes, the controversy surrounding the massacre remains a stumbling block in Sino-Japanese relations, as well as Japanese relations with other Asia-Pacific nations such as South Korea and the Philippines.

An accurate estimation of the death toll in the massacre is never achieved because most of the Japanese military records on the killings were deliberately destroyed or kept secret shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945. The International Military Tribunal of the Far East estimates more than 200,000 casualties in the incident;[5] China's official estimate is about 300,000 casualties, based on the evaluation of the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal. Estimates from Japanese historians vary widely, in the vicinity of 40,000–200,000. Some Japanese scholars even deny that a widespread, systematic massacre occurred at all, claiming that any deaths were either justified militarily, accidental or isolated incidents of unauthorized atrocities. These negationists claim that the characterization of the incident as a large-scale, systematic massacre was fabricated for the purpose of political propaganda.[6][7]

Although the Japanese government has admitted the acts of the killing of a large number of noncombatants, looting and other violence committed by the Imperial Japanese Army after the fall of Nanking,[8][9] some Japanese officials have argued that the death toll was military in nature and that no such crimes ever occurred. Denial of the massacre (and a divergent array of revisionist accounts of the killings) has become a staple of Japanese nationalism.[10] In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, and few deny the occurrence of the massacre outright.[10] Nonetheless, recurring attempts by negationists to promote a revisionist history of the incident have created controversy that periodically reverberates in the international media, particularly in China, South Korea, and other East Asian nations.[11]Contents [hide]
1 Military situation
1.1 Relocation of the Chinese capital
1.2 Strategy for the defense of Nanking
2 Approach of the Imperial Japanese Army
2.1 Japanese war crimes on the march to Nanking
2.2 Flight of Chinese civilians
2.3 Establishment of the Nanking Safety Zone
2.4 Prince Asaka appointed as commander
3 Battle of Nanking
3.1 Siege of the city
3.2 Demand for surrender
3.3 Assault and capture of Nanking
3.4 Pursuit and mopping-up operations
4 Massacre
4.1 Rape
4.2 Murder of civilians
4.3 Execution of Chinese POWs
4.4 Theft and arson
4.5 Nanking Safety Zone and the role of foreigners
4.6 Causes
5 Matsui's reaction to the massacre
6 End of the massacre
7 Recall of Matsui and Asaka
8 Death toll estimates
8.1 Range and duration
8.2 Various estimates
9 War crimes tribunals
9.1 Grant of immunity to Prince Asaka
9.2 Evidence and testimony
9.3 Matsui's defense
9.4 Verdict
9.5 Sentence
10 Memorials
11 Controversy
11.1 Cold War
11.2 Debate in Japan
11.3 Apology and condolences by the prime minister and emperor of Japan
11.4 Denial of the massacre by the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan
12 Legacy
12.1 Effect on international relations
12.2 As a component of national identity
12.3 Japan
12.4 China
13 In the media
13.1 Music
13.2 Novels
13.3 Non-fiction
13.4 Films
13.5 TV series
13.6 Records
14 See also
15 Notes
16 References
17 Further reading
18 External links

[edit]
Military situation

In August 1937, the Japanese army invaded Shanghai and there they met strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties. The battle was bloody as both sides faced attrition in urban hand-to-hand combat. By mid-November the Japanese had captured Shanghai with the help of naval bombardment. The General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo initially decided not to expand the war due to heavy casualties incurred and the low morale of the troops. However, on December 1, headquarters ordered the Central China Area Army and the 10th Army to capture Nanking, then-capital of the Republic of China.
[edit]
Relocation of the Chinese capital

After losing the Battle of Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek knew the fall of Nanking would be simply a matter of time. He and his staff realized that he could not risk annihilation of their elite troops in a symbolic but hopeless defense of the capital. In order to preserve the army for future battles, most of them were withdrawn. Chiang Kai-shek's strategy was to follow the suggestion of his German advisers to draw the Japanese army deep into China utilizing China's vast territory as a defensive strength. Chiang planned to fight a protracted war of attrition by wearing down the Japanese in the hinterland of China.[12]

Leaving General Tang Shengzhi in charge of the city for the Battle of Nanking, Chiang and many of his advisors flew to Wuhan, where they stayed until it was attacked in 1938.
[edit]
Strategy for the defense of Nanking

In a press release to foreign reporters, Tang Shengzhi announced the city would not surrender and would fight to the death. Tang gathered about 100,000 soldiers, largely untrained, including Chinese troops who had participated in the Battle of Shanghai. To prevent civilians from fleeing the city, he ordered troops to guard the port, as instructed by Chiang Kai-shek. The defense force blocked roads, destroyed boats, and burnt nearby villages, preventing widespread evacuation.

The Chinese government left for relocation on December 1, and the president left on December 7, leaving the fate of Nanking to an International Committee led by John Rabe.

The defense plan fell apart quickly. Those defending the city encountered Chinese troops fleeing from previous defeats such as the Battle of Shanghai, running from the advancing Japanese army. This did nothing to help the morale of the defenders, many of whom were killed during the defense of the city and subsequent Japanese occupation that followed.
[edit]
Approach of the Imperial Japanese Army
[edit]
Japanese war crimes on the march to Nanking

One of articles on the "Contest to kill 100 people using a sword" published in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun. The headline reads, "'Incredible Record' (in the Contest to Cut Down 100 People) —Mukai 106 – 105 Noda—Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings".[13]

Sword used in the "contest" on display at the Republic of China Armed Forces Museum in Taipei, Taiwan

Although the Nanking Massacre is generally described as having occurred over a six-week period after the fall of Nanking, the crimes committed by the Japanese army were not limited to that period. Many atrocities were reported to have been committed as the Japanese army advanced from Shanghai to Nanking.

According to one Japanese journalist embedded with Imperial forces at the time, "The reason that the [10th Army] is advancing to Nanking quite rapidly is due to the tacit consent among the officers and men that they could loot and rape as they wish."[14]

Novelist Ishikawa Tatsuzo vividly described how the 16th Division of the Shanghai Expeditionary Force committed atrocities on the march between Shanghai and Nanking in his novel Ikiteiru Heitai [Living Soldiers], which was based on interviews that Tatsuzo conducted with troops in Nanking during January 1938.[15]

Perhaps the most notorious atrocity was a killing contest between two Japanese officers as reported in the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun and the English language Japan Advertiser. The contest was covered much like a sporting event with regular updates on the score over a series of days.[16][17] In Japan, the veracity of the newspaper article about the contest was the subject of ferocious debate for several decades starting in 1967.[18]

In 2000, historian Bob Wakabayashi concurred with certain Japanese scholars who had argued that the contest was a concocted story, with the collusion of the soldiers themselves for the purpose of raising the national fighting spirit.[19] In 2005, a Tokyo district judge dismissed a suit by the families of the lieutenants, stating that "the lieutenants admitted the fact that they raced to kill 100 people" and that the story cannot be proven to be clearly false.[20] The judge also ruled against the civil claim of the plaintiffs because the original article was more than 60 years old.[21]　The historicity of the event remains disputed in Japan.[22]
[edit]
Flight of Chinese civilians

As the Japanese army drew closer to Nanjing, Chinese civilians fled the city in droves. The people of Nanking fled in panic not only because of the dangers of the anticipated battle but also because they feared the deprivation inherent in the scorched earth strategy that the Chinese troops were implementing in the area surrounding the city.[citation needed]

On July 31, the Kuomintang (KMT) had issued a statement that they were determined to turn every Chinese national and every piece of their soil into ash, rather than turn them over to the opponent. The Nanking garrison force set fire to buildings and houses in the areas close to Xiakuan to the north as well as in the environs of the eastern and southern city gates.[citation needed] Targets within and outside of the city walls—such as military barracks, private homes, the Chinese Ministry of Communication, forests and even entire villages—were burnt to cinders, at an estimated value of 20 to 30 million (1937) US dollars.[23][24][25]
[edit]
Establishment of the Nanking Safety Zone
Main article: Nanking Safety Zone

Many Westerners were living in the city at that time, conducting trade or on missionary trips. As the Japanese army approached Nanking, most of them fled the city, leaving 27 foreigners. Five of these were journalists who remained in the city a few days after it was captured, leaving the city on December 16. 15 of the remaining 22 foreigners formed a committee, called the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone.[26] German businessman John Rabe was elected as its leader, in part because of his status as a member of the Nazi party and the existence of the German-Japanese bilateral Anti-Comintern Pact.

The Committee established the Nanking Safety Zone in the western quarter of the city. The Japanese government had previously agreed not to attack parts of the city that did not contain Chinese military forces, and the members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone managed to persuade the Chinese government to move their troops out of the area.

On December 1, 1937, Nanking Mayor Ma Chao-chun ordered all Chinese citizens remaining in Nanking to move into the “Safety Zone”. Many fled the city on December 7, and the International Committee took over as the de facto government of Nanking.
[edit]
Prince Asaka appointed as commander

Prince Yasuhiko Asaka in 1940

Head of a Chinese man beheaded by Japanese, is wedged in a barricade near Nanking just before the fall of the city.[27]

In a memorandum for the palace rolls, Hirohito had singled Prince Asaka Yasuhiko out for censure as the one imperial kinsman whose attitude was "not good." He assigned Asaka to Nanking as an opportunity to make amends.[28]

On December 5, Asaka left Tokyo by plane and arrived at the front three days later. Asaka met with division commanders, lieutenant-generals Kesago Nakajima and Heisuke Yanagawa, who informed him that the Japanese troops had almost completely surrounded three hundred thousand Chinese troops in the vicinity of Nanking and that preliminary negotiations suggested that the Chinese were ready to surrender.[29]

Prince Asaka allegedly issued an order to "kill all captives," thus providing official sanction for the crimes which took place during and after the battle.[30] Some authors record that Prince Asaka signed the order for Japanese soldiers in Nanking to "kill all captives"[31] Others claim that lieutenant colonel Isamu Chō, Asaka's aide-de-camp, sent this order under the Prince's sign manual without the Prince's knowledge or assent.[32] However, even if Chō took the initiative on his own, Prince Asaka, who was nominally the officer in charge, gave no orders to stop the carnage. When General Matsui arrived in the city four days after the massacre had begun, he issued strict orders that resulted in the eventual end of the massacre.

While the extent of Prince Asaka's responsibility for the massacre remains a matter of debate, the ultimate sanction for the massacre and the crimes committed during the invasion of China were issued in the Emperor Hirohito's ratification of the Japanese army's proposition to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners on August 5, 1937.[33]
[edit]
Battle of Nanking
Main article: Battle of Nanking
[edit]
Siege of the city

On December 7, the Japanese army issued a command to all troops, advising that because occupying a foreign capital was an unprecedented event for the Japanese military, those soldiers who "[commit] any illegal acts", "dishonor the Japanese Army", "loot", or "cause a fire to break out, even because of their carelessness" would be severely punished.[34]

The Japanese military continued to move forward, breaching the last lines of Chinese resistance, and arriving outside the walled city of Nanking on December 9.
[edit]
Demand for surrender

At noon on December 9, the military dropped leaflets into the city, urging the surrender of Nanking within 24 hours, promising annihilation if refused.[35][36]

Meanwhile, members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone contacted Tang and suggested a plan for three-day cease-fire, during which the Chinese troops could withdraw without fighting while the Japanese troops would stay in their present position.

General Tang agreed with this proposal if the International Committee could acquire permission of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, who had already fled to Hankow to which he had temporarily shifted the military headquarters two days earlier.

German businessman and chairman of the International Committee, John Rabe, boarded the U.S. gunboat Panay on Dec. 9 and sent two telegrams, one to Chiang Kai-shek by way of the American ambassador in Hankow, and one to the Japanese military authority in Shanghai. The next day he was informed that Chiang Kai-shek, who had ordered that Nanking be defended "to the last man," had refused to accept the proposal.[citation needed]
[edit]
Assault and capture of Nanking

Iwane Matsui enters Nanking

The Japanese awaited an answer to their demand for surrender but no response was received from the Chinese by the noon deadline on December 10. General Matsui Iwane waited another hour before issuing the command to take Nanking by force. The Japanese army mounted its assault on the Nanking walls from multiple directions; the SEF’s 16th Division attacked three gates on the eastern side, the 6th Division of the 10A launched its offensive on the western walls, and the SEF’s 9th Division advanced into the area in-between.[12]

On December 12, after two days of Japanese attack, under heavy artillery fire and aerial bombardment, General Tang Sheng-chi ordered his men to retreat. What followed was nothing short of chaos. Some Chinese soldiers stripped civilians of their clothing in a desperate attempt to blend in, and many others were shot by the Chinese supervisory unit as they tried to flee.[23]

On the 13th of December, the 6th and the 116th Divisions of the Japanese Army were the first to enter the city, facing little military resistance. Simultaneously, the 9th Division entered nearby Guanghua Gate, and the 16th Division entered the Zhongshan and Taiping gates. That same afternoon, two small Japanese Navy fleets arrived on both sides of the Yangtze River. Nanking fell to the Japanese by nightfall.[citation needed]
[edit]
Pursuit and mopping-up operations

Soldiers from the Imperial Japanese Army enter Nanking in January 1938

Japanese troops pursued the retreating Chinese army units, primarily in the Xiakuan area to the north of the city walls and around the Zijin Mountain in the east. Although the popular narrative suggests that the final phase of the battle consisted of a one-sided slaughter of Chinese troops by the Japanese, some Japanese historians maintain that the remaining Chinese military still posed a serious threat to the Japanese. Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, SEF commander, told a war correspondent later that he was in a very perilous position when his headquarters was ambushed by Chinese forces that were in the midst of retreating from Nanking east of the city. On the other side of the city, the 11th Company of the 45th Regiment encountered some 20,000 Chinese soldiers who were making their way from Xiakuan.[12]

The Japanese army conducted its mopping-up operation both inside and outside the Nanking Safety Zone. Since the area outside the safety zone had been almost completely evacuated, the mopping-up effort was concentrated in the safety zone. The safety zone, an area of 3.85 square kilometers, was literally packed with the remaining population of Nanking. The Japanese army leadership assigned sections of the safety zone to some units to separate alleged plain-clothed soldiers from the civilians.[12]
[edit]
Massacre

Eyewitness accounts of Westerners and Chinese present at Nanking in the weeks after the fall of the city state that over the course of six weeks following the fall of Nanking, Japanese troops engaged in rape, murder, theft, arson, and other war crimes. Some of these accounts came from foreigners who opted to stay behind in order to protect Chinese civilians from harm, including the diaries of German John Rabe and American Minnie Vautrin. Other accounts include first-person testimonies of the Nanking Massacre survivors, eyewitness reports of journalists (both Western and Japanese), as well as the field diaries of military personnel. An American missionary, John Magee, stayed behind to provide a 16 mm film documentary and first-hand photographs of the Nanking Massacre.[citation needed]

A group of foreign expatriates headed by John Rabe had formed the 15-man International Committee on November 22 and mapped out the Nanking Safety Zone in order to safeguard civilians in the city, where the population numbered from 200,000 to 250,000. Rabe and American missionary Lewis S. C. Smythe, secretary of the International Committee and a professor of sociology at the University of Nanking, recorded the actions of the Japanese troops and filed complaints to the Japanese embassy.[citation needed]
[edit]
Rape

Photo taken in Xuzhou, showing the body of a woman profaned in a similar way to the teenager described in case 5 of John Magee's movie.

Case 5 of John Magee's film: on December 13, 1937, about 30 Japanese soldiers murdered all but 2 Chinese of 11 in the house at No. 5 Xinlukou. A woman and her two teenager daughters were raped, and Japanese rammed a bottle and a cane in the vagina. An eight-year old girl was stabbed but she and her younger sister survived. They were found alive two weeks after the killings by an elderly woman shown in the photo. Bodies of the victims can also be seen in the photo.[37][38]

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated that 20,000 women were raped, including infants and the elderly.[39] A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped.[40] The women were often killed immediately after the rape, often through explicit mutilation[41] or by stabbing a bayonet, long stick of bamboo,[42] or other objects into the vagina. Young children were not exempt from these atrocities, and were cut open to allow Japanese soldiers to rape them.

On 19 December 1937, Reverend James M. McCallum wrote in his diary:

I know not where to end. Never I have heard or read such brutality. Rape! Rape! Rape! We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night, and many by day. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval, there is a bayonet stab or a bullet ... People are hysterical ... Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon and evening. The whole Japanese army seems to be free to go and come as it pleases, and to do whatever it pleases.[43]

On March 7, 1938, Robert O. Wilson, a surgeon at the American-administered University Hospital in the Safety Zone, wrote in a letter to his family, "a conservative estimate of people slaughtered in cold blood is somewhere about 100,000, including of course thousands of soldiers that had thrown down their arms".[44]

Here are two excerpts from his letters of 15 and 18 December 1937 to his family:

The slaughter of civilians is appalling. I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief. Two bayoneted corpses are the only survivors of seven street cleaners who were sitting in their headquarters when Japanese soldiers came in without warning or reason and killed five of their number and wounded the two that found their way to the hospital.

Let me recount some instances occurring in the last two days. Last night the house of one of the Chinese staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives, were raped. Two girls, about 16, were raped to death in one of the refugee camps. In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japs came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they were satisfied. They bayoneted one little boy of eight who have [sic] five bayonet wounds including one that penetrated his stomach, a portion of omentum was outside the abdomen. I think he will live.[45]

In his diary kept during the aggression to the city and its occupation by the Imperial Japanese Army, the leader of the Safety Zone, John Rabe, wrote many comments about Japanese atrocities. For the 17th December:

Two Japanese soldiers have climbed over the garden wall and are about to break into our house. When I appear they give the excuse that they saw two Chinese soldiers climb over the wall. When I show them my party badge, they return the same way. In one of the houses in the narrow street behind my garden wall, a woman was raped, and then wounded in the neck with a bayonet. I managed to get an ambulance so we can take her to Kulou Hospital ... Last night up to 1,000 women and girls are said to have been raped, about 100 girls at Ginling College Girls alone. You hear nothing but rape. If husbands or brothers intervene, they're shot. What you hear and see on all sides is the brutality and bestiality of the Japanese soldiers.[46]

There are also accounts of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest.[47] Sons were forced to rape their mothers, fathers were forced to rape daughters. One pregnant woman who was gang-raped by Japanese soldiers gave birth only a few hours later; although the baby appeared to be physically unharmed (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were also forced to rape women.
[edit]
Murder of civilians

A boy was killed by Japanese with a butt of a rifle, because he did not take off his hat.

On 13 December 1937, John Rabe wrote in his diary:

It is not until we tour the city that we learn the extent of destruction. We come across corpses every 100 to 200 yards. The bodies of civilians that I examined had bullet holes in their backs. These people had presumably been fleeing and were shot from behind. The Japanese march through the city in groups of ten to twenty soldiers and loot the shops (...) I watched with my own eyes as they looted the café of our German baker Herr Kiessling. Hempel's hotel was broken into as well, as almost every shop on Chung Shang and Taiping Road.[48]

On 10 February 1938, Legation Secretary of the German Embassy, Rosen, wrote to his Foreign Ministry about a film made in December by Reverend John Magee to recommend its purchase. Here is an excerpt from his letter and a description of some of its shots, kept in the Political Archives of the Foreign Ministry in Berlin.

During the Japanese reign of terror in Nanking – which, by the way, continues to this day to a considerable degree – the Reverend John Magee, a member of the American Episcopal Church Mission who has been here for almost a quarter of a century, took motion pictures that eloquently bear witness to the atrocities committed by the Japanese .... One will have to wait and see whether the highest officers in the Japanese army succeed, as they have indicated, in stopping the activities of their troops, which continue even today.[49]

On December 13, about 30 soldiers came to a Chinese house at #5 Hsing Lu Koo in the southeastern part of Nanking, and demanded entrance. The door was open by the landlord, a Mohammedan named Ha. They killed him immediately with a revolver and also Mrs. Ha, who knelt before them after Ha's death, begging them not to kill anyone else. Mrs. Ha asked them why they killed her husband and they shot her. Mrs. Hsia was dragged out from under a table in the guest hall where she had tried to hide with her 1 year old baby. After being stripped and raped by one or more men, she was bayoneted in the chest, and then had a bottle thrust into her vagina. The baby was killed with a bayonet. Some soldiers then went to the next room, where Mrs. Hsia's parents, aged 76 and 74, and her two daughters aged 16 and 14. They were about to rape the girls when the grandmother tried to protect them. The soldiers killed her with a revolver. The grandfather grasped the body of his wife and was killed. The two girls were then stripped, the elder being raped by 2–3 men, and the younger by 3. The older girl was stabbed afterwards and a cane was rammed in her vagina. The younger girl was bayoneted also but was spared the horrible treatment that had been meted out to her sister and mother. The soldiers then bayoneted another sister of between 7–8, who was also in the room. The last murders in the house were of Ha's two children, aged 4 and 2 respectively. The older was bayoneted and the younger split down through the head with a sword.[50]

Pregnant women were a target of murder, as they would often be bayoneted in the stomach, sometimes after rape. Tang Junshan, survivor and witness to one of the Japanese army’s systematic mass killings, testified:

The seventh and last person in the first row was a pregnant woman. The soldier thought he might as well rape her before killing her, so he pulled her out of the group to a spot about ten meters away. As he was trying to rape her, the woman resisted fiercely ... The soldier abruptly stabbed her in the belly with a bayonet. She gave a final scream as her intestines spilled out. Then the soldier stabbed the fetus, with its umbilical cord clearly visible, and tossed it aside.[51]

According to Navy veteran Sho Mitani, 'The Army used a trumpet sound that meant "Kill all Chinese who run away"'.[52] Thousands were led away and mass-executed in an excavation known as the "Ten-Thousand-Corpse Ditch", a trench measuring about 300m long and 5m wide. Since records were not kept, estimates regarding the number of victims buried in the ditch range from 4,000 to 20,000. However, most scholars and historians consider the number to be more than 12,000 victims.[53]
[edit]
Execution of Chinese POWs

On August 6, 1937, Hirohito had personally ratified his army's proposition to remove the constraints of international law on the treatment of Chinese prisoners. This directive also advised staff officers to stop using the term "prisoner of war".[54]

A Chinese POW about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer with a shin gunto during the Nanking Massacre.

Immediately after the fall of the city, Japanese troops embarked on a determined search for former soldiers, in which thousands of young men were captured. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned. What was probably the single largest massacre of Chinese troops occurred along the banks of the Yangtze River on December 18 in what is called the Straw String Gorge Massacre. Japanese soldiers took most of the morning tying all of the POWs hands together and in the dusk divided them into 4 columns, and opened fire at them. Unable to escape, the POWs could only scream and thrash in desperation. It took an hour for the sounds of death to stop, and even longer for the Japanese to bayonet each individual. Most were dumped into the Yangtze. It is estimated that at least 57,500 Chinese POWs were killed.[citation needed]

The Japanese troops gathered 1,300 Chinese soldiers and civilians at Taiping Gate and killed them. The victims were blown up with landmines, then doused with petrol before being set on fire. Those that were left alive afterward were killed with bayonets.[55]

F. Tillman Durdin and Archibald Steele, American news correspondents, reported that they had seen bodies of killed Chinese soldiers forming mounds six feet high at the Nanking Yijiang gate in the north. Durdin, who was working for the New York Times, made a tour of Nanking before his departure from the city. He heard waves of machine-gun fire and witnessed the Japanese soldiers gun down some two hundred Chinese within ten minutes. Two days later, in his report to the New York Times, he stated that the alleys and street were filled with civilian bodies, including women and children.[56]

According to a testimony made by missionary Ralph L. Phillips to the U.S. State Assembly Investigating Committee, he was "forced to watch while the Japs disembowled a Chinese soldier" and "roasted his heart and liver and ate them".[57]
[edit]
Theft and arson

One-third of the city was destroyed as a result of arson. According to reports, Japanese troops torched newly-built government buildings as well as the homes of many civilians. There was considerable destruction to areas outside the city walls. Soldiers pillaged from the poor and the wealthy alike. The lack of resistance from Chinese troops and civilians in Nanking meant that the Japanese soldiers were free to divide up the city's valuables as they saw fit. This resulted in the widespread looting and burglary.[58]

On 17 December, John Rabe wrote as chairman a complaint to Kiyoshi Fukui, second secretary of the Japanese Embassy. The following is an excerpt:

In other words, on the 13th when your troops entered the city, we had nearly all the civilian population gathered in a Zone in which there had been very little destruction by stray shells and no looting by Chinese soldiers even in full retreat ... All 27 Occidentals in the city at that time and our Chinese population were totally surprised by the reign of robbery, raping and killing initiated by your soldiers on the 14th. All we are asking in our protest is that you restore order among your troops and get the normal life city going as soon as possible. In the latter process we are glad to cooperate in any way we can. But even last night between 8 and 9 p.m. when five Occidentals members of our staff and Committee toured the Zone to observe conditions, we did not find any single Japanese patrol either in the Zone or at the entrances![59]
[edit]
Nanking Safety Zone and the role of foreigners

The Japanese troops did respect the Zone to an extent; no shells entered that part of the city leading up to the Japanese occupation except a few stray shots. During the chaos following the attack of the city, some were killed in the Safety Zone, but the crimes that took place in the rest of the city were far greater by all accounts.

The Japanese soldiers committed actions in the Safety Zone that were part of the larger Nanking Massacre. The International Committee appealed a number of times to the Japanese army, with John Rabe using his credentials as a NSDAP member, but to no avail. Rabe wrote that from time to time the Japanese would enter the Safety Zone at will, carry off a few hundred men and women, and either summarily execute them or rape and then kill them.[60]

By February 5, 1938, the International Committee had forwarded to the Japanese embassy a total of 450 cases of murder, rape, and general disorder by Japanese soldiers that had been reported after the American, British and German diplomats had returned to their embassies.[61]
"Case 5- On the night of December 14th, there were many cases of Japanese soldiers entering houses and raping women or taking them away. This created panic in the area and hundreds of women moved into the Gingling College campus yesterday."[61]
"Case 10- On the night of December 15th, a number of Japanese soldiers entered the University of Nanking buildings at Tao Yuen and raped 30 women on the spot, some by six men."[61]
"Case 13 – December 18, 4 p.m., at No. 18 I Ho Lu, Japanese soldiers wanted a man's cigarette case and when he hesitated, one of the soldier crashed in the side of his head with a bayonet. The man is now at the University Hospital and is not expected to live."[61]
"Case 14 – On December 16th, seven girls (ages ranged from 16 to 21) were taken away from the Military College. Five returned. Each girl was raped six or seven times daily- reported December 18th."[61]
"Case 15 – There are about 540 refugees crowded in #83 and 85 on Canton Road... More than 30 women and girls have been raped. The women and children are crying all nights. Conditions inside the compound are worse than we can describe. Please give us help."[61]
"Case 16- A Chinese girl named Loh, who, with her mother and brother, was living in one of the Refugee Centers in the Refugee Zone, was shot through the head and killed by a Japanese soldier. The girl was 14 years old. The incident occurred near the Kuling Ssu, a noted temple on the border of the Refugee zone (...)"[61]
"Case 19 – January 30th, about 5 p.m. Mr. Sone (of the Nanking Theological Seminary) was greeted by several hundred women pleading with him that they would not have to go home on February 4th. They said it was no use going home they might just as well be killed for staying at the camp as to be raped, robbed or killed at home. (...) One old woman 62 years old went home near Hansimen and Japanese soldiers came at night and wanted to rape her. She said she was too old. So the soldiers rammed a stick up her. But she survived to come back."[61]

It is said that Rabe rescued between 200,000 – 250,000 Chinese people.[62] [63]
[edit]
Causes

"There is no obvious explanation for this grim event, nor can one be found. The Japanese soldiers, who had expected easy victory, instead had been fighting hard for months and had taken infinitely higher casualties than anticipated. They were bored, angry, frustrated, tired. The Chinese women were undefended, their menfolk powerless or absent. The war, still undeclared, had no clear-cut goal or purpose. Perhaps all Chinese, regardless of sex or age, seemed marked out as victims.".[64]