The Rape of Nanking

 

The Nanking Massacre, commonly known as "The Rape of Nanking", refers to the most infamous of the war crimes committed by the Japanese military during World War II—acts carried out by Japanese troops in and around Nanjing (then known in English as Nanking), China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the period of carnage lasted well into the next six weeks, until early February 1938.

 

During the occupation of Nanjing, the Japanese army committed numerous atrocities, such as rape, looting, arson and the execution of prisoners of war and civilians. Although the executions began under the pretext of eliminating Chinese soldiers disguised as civilians, a large number of innocent men were wrongfully identified as enemy combatants and killed. A large number of women and children were also killed, as rape and murder became more widespread.

 

Nations outside Japan generally agree that the non-combatant death toll was 300,000. This number was first promulgated in January of 1938 by Harold Timperly, a journalist in China during the Japanese invasion. It has been corraborated by contemporary eyewitnesses and recent excavations. This number includes massacres in the neighboring regions outside the city walls of Nanking for the duration of the Japanese occupation.

 

The extent of the atrocities is hotly debated, with numbers ranging from the claim of the Japanese army at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that the death toll was military in nature and that no such atrocities ever occurred, to the Chinese claim of a non-combatant death toll of 300,000. The West and other nations outside Japan have generally tended to adopt the 1938 estimates of 300,000, with many sources now quoting 300,000 dead. This is partly due to the existence of extensive photographic records of the mutilated bodies of women and children, as well as the commercial success of Iris Chang's The Rape of Nanking, which has renewed interest in the massacre.

 

The massacre is a major focal point of burgeoning Chinese nationalism, and in China, opinions are relatively homogenous. In Japan, however, public opinion over the severity of the massacre remains widely divided. The event continues to be a point of contention and controversy in Sino-Japanese relations.

Contents

The Rape of Nanking Historical background Invasion of China Approach towards Nanjing Nanking Safety Zone Siege of the City Atrocities begin Rape Murder Theft and arson Death toll estimates Range and duration Defining the victims Various estimates Historiography and debate Post-1972 Japanese interest The Ienaga textbook incident

 

 

 

Historical background

 

 

Invasion of China

 

Following the Mukden Incident in 1931, Japan began the invasion of Manchuria, China. Several important battles ensued, such as Shanghai (1932), Great Wall (1933), and some agreements were signed between China and Japan which demilitarized parts of northern China in the proximity of Manchuria. Because the Nationalists (KMT) and the Communists were engaged in the Chinese Civil War, China was not able to put up a significant resistance to Japanese aggression. However, this situation changed in 1937, following the Xi'an Incident, when the Chinese Nationalists and the Chinese communists agreed to form a united front against Japan. The KMT then formally started an all-out defense against the Japanese military threat. It is likely that China fielded the largest army in the world at the time in terms of troop numbers. However, most of the Chinese army was poorly trained and poorly equipped; some regiments were armed primarily with swords and hand grenades, and few had anti-tank weaponry. Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, which marked the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese War, the Japanese were swift in capturing major Chinese cities in the northeast.

 

In August of 1937, the Japanese army faced strong resistance and suffered heavy casualties in the Battle of Shanghai, effectively destroying the possibility of conquering China in three months, as they had originally planned. The battle was bloody, as both sides were worn down by attrition in hand-to-hand combat. Some historians today believe that the traumatic situation in Shanghai nurtured some of the psychological conditions necessary for Japanese soldiers to later commit atrocities in Nanjing.1 By mid-November, the Japanese had captured Shanghai with the help of naval and aerial bombardment. The General Staff Headquarters in Tokyo decided not to expand the war, due to the heavy casualties incurred and the low morale of the troops.

 

 

Approach towards Nanjing

 

As the Japanese army grew closer to Nanjing, Chinese civilians fled the city in droves, and the Chinese military put into effect a scorched earth campaign,2 aimed at destroying anything that might be of value to the invading Japanese army. Targets within and without 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.345

 

 

Nanking Safety Zone

 

Many Westerners were living in the city at the time, conducting trade or on missionary trips with various religious groups. As the Japanese Army began to launch bombing raids over Nanjing, most westerners fled to their respective countries of origin. A few westerners, mostly American missionaries with church groups, but also including John Rabe (presumably because of his status as a Nazi and the German-Japanese bilateral Cominterm Pact), stayed behind and formed a committee, called the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. Rabe was elected as its leader. This committee established the Nanking Safety Zone in the western quarter of the city; the Japanese government had agreed not to attack parts of the city that did not contain Chinese military, and the members of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone managed to persuade the Chinese government to move all their troops out of the area.

 

The Japanese 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 atrocities in the rest of the city were far greater by all accounts.

 

 

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.6 The Japanese military continued to march forward, breaching the last lines of Chinese resistance, and arriving outside the walled city of Nanjing on December 9. At noon, the military dropped leaflets into the city, urging the surrender of Nanjing within 24 hours:1

 

 

The Japanese awaited an answer. When no Chinese envoy had arrived by 1:00 p.m. the following day, General Matsui issued the command to take Nanjing by force. 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 in the back by their own comrades as they tried to flee.3 Those who actually made it outside the city walls fled north to the Yangtze, only to find that there were no vessels remaining to take them. Some then jumped into the wintry waters and drowned.

 

On December 13, the Japanese entered the walled city of Nanjing, virtually free of any military resistance.

 

 

Atrocities begin

Heaps of dead bodies wait for disposal on the wharves of Hsiakwan (Xiaguan), the port suburb north of Nanking. (photographed by Murase Moriyasu, of the 17th Motorized Company of the Supply and Transport Regiment.)

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Heaps of dead bodies wait for disposal on the wharves of Hsiakwan (Xiaguan), the port suburb north of Nanking. (photographed by Murase Moriyasu, of the 17th Motorized Company of the Supply and Transport Regiment.)

 

Eyewitness accounts from the period state that over the course of six weeks following the fall of Nanjing, Japanese troops engaged in an orgy of rape, murder, theft, and arson. The most reliable accounts came from foreigners who opted to stay behind in order to protect Chinese civilians from certain harm, including the diaries of John Rabe and Minnie Vautrin. Others include first-person testimonies of the Nanjing Massacre survivors. Still more were gathered from eyewitnesses reports of journalists, both Western and Japanese, as well as the field diaries of certain military personnel. An American missionary, John Magee, stayed behind to provide a 16mm film documentary and first-hand photographs of the Nanjing Massacre. In addition, although few Japanese veterans have admitted to having participated in atrocities in Nanjing, some—most notably Shiro Azuma—have admitted to criminal behavior.

 

Immediately after the city's fall, a group of foreign expatriates headed by John Rabe formed the 15-man International Committee on November 22 and drew up the Nanking Safety Zone in order to safeguard the lives of civilians in the city, where the population ran from 200,000 to 250,000. It is likely that the civilian death toll would have been much higher had this safe haven not been created. Rabe and American missionary Lewis S. C. Smythe, the secretary of the International Committee, who was also a professor of sociology at the University of Nanking, recorded atrocities of the Japanese troops and filed reports of complaints to the Japanese embassy.

 

Nanjing Hospital was the site of some of the most gruesome atrocities committed during the occupation. Bandages were torn from the flesh of the wounded, casts were smashed with clubs, and nurses were repeatedly raped.

 

 

Rape

 

 

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East stated that 20,000 (and perhaps up to 80,000) women were raped—their ages ranging from as young as seven to the elderly. Rapes were often performed in public during the day, sometimes in front of spouses or family members. A large number of them were systematized in a process where soldiers would search door-to-door for young girls, with many women taken captive and gang raped. The women were then killed immediately after the rape, often by mutilation. According to some testimonies, other women were forced into military prostitution as comfort women. There are even stories of Japanese troops forcing families to commit acts of incest: 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; miraculously, the baby was perfectly healthy (Robert B. Edgerton, Warriors of the Rising Sun). Monks who had declared a life of celibacy were forced to rape women for the amusement of the Japanese. Instances of Chinese men being forced to commit sex with corpses were not unheard of. Any resistance would be met with summary executions. While the rape peaked immediately following the fall of the city, it continued for the duration of the Japanese occupation.

 

 

Murder

 

 

 

Immediately after the fall of the city, Japanese troops embarked on a frenzied search for former soldiers, in which thousands of young men were captured. Many were taken to the Yangtze River, where they were machine-gunned so their bodies would be carried down to Shanghai. Others were reportedly used for live bayonet practice. Decapitation was a popular method of killing, while more drastic practices include burning, nailing to trees, live burial, and hanging by the tongue. Some people were beaten to death. The Japanese also summarily executed many pedestrians on the streets, usually under the pretext that they might be soldiers disguised in civilian clothing.

 

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 around 12,000 victims.

 

Women and children were not spared from the horrors of the massacres. Witnesses recall Japanese soldiers throwing babies into the air and catching them with their bayonets. Pregnant women were often the target of murder, as they would often be bayoneted in the belly, sometimes after rape. Many women were first brutally raped then killed.

 

 

Theft and arson

 

It is estimated that over one-third and as much as two-thirds 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 Nanjing meant that the Japanese soldiers were free to divy up the city's valuables as they saw fit. This resulted in the widespread looting and burglary. General Matsui Iwane was given an art collection worth $2,000,000 that was stolen from a Shanghai banker.

 

 

Death toll estimates

 

Manchester Guardian correspondent H.J. Timperley wrote this telegram, which was stopped by Japanese censors in Shanghai. It was forwarded to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. on January 17th, 1938, by Japanese foreign minister Kōki Hirota, where the transmission was intercepted and decoded by the Americans. "Since return (to) Shanghai (a) few days ago I investigated reported atrocities committed by Japanese Army in Nanking and elsewhere. Verbal accounts (of) reliable eye-witnesses and letters from individuals whose credibility (is) beyond question afford convincing proof (that) Japanese Army behaved and (is) continuing (to) behave in (a) fashion reminiscent (of) Attila (and) his Huns. (Not) less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians slaughtered, many cases (in) cold blood."

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Manchester Guardian correspondent H.J. Timperley wrote this telegram, which was stopped by Japanese censors in Shanghai. It was forwarded to the Japanese Embassy in Washington, D.C. on January 17th, 1938, by Japanese foreign minister Kōki Hirota, where the transmission was intercepted and decoded by the Americans. "Since return (to) Shanghai (a) few days ago I investigated reported atrocities committed by Japanese Army in Nanking and elsewhere. Verbal accounts (of) reliable eye-witnesses and letters from individuals whose credibility (is) beyond question afford convincing proof (that) Japanese Army behaved and (is) continuing (to) behave in (a) fashion reminiscent (of) Attila (and) his Huns. (Not) less than three hundred thousand Chinese civilians slaughtered, many cases (in) cold blood."

 

There is great debate as to the extent of the war atrocities in Nanjing, especially regarding estimates of the death toll. The issues involved in calculating the number of victims are largely based on the debatees' definitions of the geographical range and the duration of the event, as well as their definition of the "victims".

 

 

Range and duration

 

The most conservative viewpoint is that the geographical area of the incident should be limited to the few square kilometers of the city known as the Safety Zone, where the civilians gathered after the invasion. Many Japanese historians seized upon the fact that during Japanese invasion there were only 200,000–250,000 citizens in Nanjing as reported by John Rabe, to argue that the PRC's estimate of 300,000 deaths is a vast exaggeration.

 

However, many historians include a much larger area around the city. Including the Xiaguan district (the suburbs north of Nanjing city, about 31 square km in size) and other areas on the outskirts of the city, the population of greater Nanjing was running between 535,000 and 635,000 just prior to the Japanese occupation.7 Some historians also include six counties around Nanjing, known as the Nanjing Special Municipality.

 

The duration of the incident is naturally defined by its geography: the larger the area, the earlier the Japanese entered it, and therefore the longer the duration. The Battle of Nanking ended on December 13, when the divisions of the Japanese Army entered the walled city of Nanking. The Tokyo War Crime Tribunal defined the period of the massacre to the ensuing six weeks. More conservative estimates say the massacre started on December 14, when the troops entered the Safety Zone, and that it lasted for 6 weeks. Historians who define the Nanking Massacre as having started from the time the Japanese army entered Jiangsu province push the beginning of the massacre to around mid-November to early December (Suzhou fell on November 19), and stretch the end of the massacre to late March 1938. As a consequence, the number of victims put forward by these historians is, naturally, much greater than other, more conservative estimates.

 

 

Defining the victims

 

Another point of contention is the question of whom to count as the victims of the atrocities. All historians agree that numerous civilians were killed in Nanjing. Throughout the war in China, neither side took many prisoners of war. The Japanese army often summarily executed captured and surrendered Chinese soldiers. They also executed many men whom they believed to be plain-clothed guerilla combatants hiding amongst civilian populations. It is unclear how many innocent civilians were wrongly accused and were dispatched in this manner.

 

While all historians agree that civilians should be counted in the death toll of the massacre, different groups have different positions on the legitimacy of the following: soldiers killed during combat; surrendered/captured soldiers summarily executed after battle; plain-clothed guerilla combatants; plain-clothed soldiers hiding among civilians; civilians wrongly suspected of being guerilla combatants. Unfortunately, archival evidence, such as burial records, state only the number of bodies, and not to which group each of the dead belonged. Therefore, they provide no means to distinguish who was killed "legitimately" and "illegitimately". The debate continues.

 

 

Various estimates

 

The International Military Tribunal for the Far East estimated in two (seemingly conflicting) reports that "over 200,000" and "over 100,000" civilians and prisoners of war were murdered during the first six weeks of the occupation. That number was based on burial records submitted by charitable organizations—including the Red Swastika Society and the Chung Shan Tang (Tsung Shan Tong)—the research done by Smythe, and some estimates given by survivors.

 

In 1947, at the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal, the verdict of Lieutenant General Tani Hisao—the commander of the 6th Division—quoted a figure of more than 300,000 dead. This estimate was made from burial records and eyewitness accounts. It concluded that some 190,000 were illegally executed at various execution sites and 150,000 were killed one-by-one. The death toll of 300,000 is the official estimate engraved on the stone wall at the entrance of the "Memorial Hall for Compatriot Victims of the Japanese Military's Nanking Massacre" in Nanjing.

 

Some modern Japanese historians, such as Kasahara Tokushi of Tsuru University and Fujiwara Akira, a professor emeritus at Hitotsubashi University, take into account the entire Nanjing Special Municipality, which consisted of the walled city and its neighboring six counties, and have come up to an estimate of approximately 200,000 dead. Other Japanese historians, depending on their definition of the geographical and time duration of the killings, place the death toll on a much wider scale from 40,000 to 300,000. In China today most estimates of the Nanking Massacre range from 200,000 to 400,000, with no notable historian going below 100,000.

 

Historiography and debate

 

At present, both China and Japan have acknowledged the occurrence of wartime atrocities. However, disputes over the historical portrayal of these events have been at the root of continuing political tensions between China and Japan.

 

The widespread atrocities committed by the Japanese in Nanjing were first reported to the world by the Westerners residing in the Nanjing Safety Zone. For instance, on January 11, 1938, a correspondent for the Manchester Guardian, Harold Timperley, tried to cable his estimate of "not less than 300,000 Chinese civilians" killed in cold blood in "Nanjing and elsewhere". His message was relayed from Shanghai to Tokyo by Kōki Hirota, to be sent out to the Japanese embassies in Europe and the United States. Dramatic reports of Japanese brutality against Chinese civilians by American journalists, as well as the Panay incident, which occurred just before the occupation of Nanjing, helped turn American public opinion against Japan. These, in part, led to a series of events which culminated in the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda competing to see who could kill (with a sword) one hundred people first. The bold headline reads, "'Incredible Record' (in the Contest to) Cut Down 100 People—Mukai 106 – 105 Noda—Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings"

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Two Japanese officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda competing to see who could kill (with a sword) one hundred people first. The bold headline reads, "'Incredible Record' (in the Contest to) Cut Down 100 People—Mukai 106 – 105 Noda—Both 2nd Lieutenants Go Into Extra Innings"

 

 

Post-1972 Japanese interest

 

Interest in the Nanking Massacre waned into near obscurity until 1972, the year China and Japan normalized diplomatic relationships. In China, to foster the newly found friendship to Japan, the Communist Government under Mao Zedong ostensibly suppressed the mention of the Nanking Massacre from public discourse and the media, which the Communist Party directly controlled. Therefore, the entire debate on the Nanking massacre during the 1970s took place in Japan. In commemoration of the normalization, one major Japanese newspaper, Asahi Shimbun, ran a series of articles entitled "Travels in China" (中国の旅, chūgoku no tabi?), written by journalist Katsuichi Honda. The articles detailed the atrocities of the Japanese Army within China, including the Nanking Massacre. In the series, Honda mentioned an episode in which two officers competed to slay 100 people with their swords. The truth of this incident is hotly disputed and critics seized on the opportunity to imply that the episode, as well as the Nanking Massacre and all its accompanying articles, were largely falsified. This is regarded as the start of the Nanking Massacre controversy in Japan.

 

The debate concerning the actual occurrence of killings and rapes took place mainly in the 1970s. The Chinese government's statements about the event came under attack during this time, because they were said to rely too heavily on personal testimonies and anecdotal evidence. Also coming under attack were the burial records presented in the Tokyo War Crime Court, which were said to be fabrications by the Chinese government. However, recent excavation activities and relatively objective and comprehensive re-evaluation have proven that the original casualities may have been underestimated largely due to the fact that the large number of refugees fleeing from other provinces and killed in Nanking was uncertain until recently.

 

 

The Ienaga textbook incident

 

The controversy flared up again in 1982, when the Japanese Ministry of Education censored any mention of the Nanking Massacre in a high school textbook. The reason given by the ministry was that the Nanking Massacre was not a well-established historical event. The author of the textbook, Professor Saburō Ienaga, sued the Ministry of Education in an extended case, which was won by the plaintiff in 1997.

 

A number of Japanese cabinet ministers, as well as some high-ranking politicians, have also made comments denying the atrocities committed by the Japanese army in World War II. Some subsequently resigned after protests from China and South Korea. In response to these and similar incidents, a number of Japanese journalists and historians formed the Nankin Jiken Chōsa Kenkyūkai (Nanjing Incident Research Group). The research group has collected large quantities of archival materials as well as testimonies from both Chinese and Japanese.

 

While most in Japan do not deny that a massacre took place in Nanking, many feel that the extent of crimes committed have been exaggerated in order to give a pretext to surging Chinese nationalism, which aims to weaken Japanese power and influence in the region. This is especially true with the more hardline members of the government cabinet, who have grown increasingly wary of China's military build-up in recent years.

 

 

 

 

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