The Rape Of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust Of World War II

by Iris Chang

  157. At least one, George Fitch, suspected: Ibid.

  157. “The Japanese military hate us”: John Magee, letter to family, January 28, 1938, archives of David Magee.

  CHAPTER 7: THE OCCUPATION OF NANKING

  159. “You cannot imagine the disorganization”: John Magee, undated letter (probably February 1938), archives of David Magee.

  159. “several feet of corpses”: Durdin, New York Times, December 18, 1937.

  160. Observers estimated that Japanese damage: For estimates of the damage, see Lewis Smythe, “War Damage in the Nanking Area” (June 1938), cited in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 232.

  160. In a sixty-page report released in June 1938: Lewis Smythe to Willard Shelton (editor of the Christian Evangelist, St. Louis), April 29, 1938, box 103, record group 8, Jarvis Collection, Yale Divinity School Library.

  160. Fires in Nanking began: Testimony of Miner Searle Bates (witness), Records from the Allied Operational/Occupation Headquarters, IMTFE transcript, pp. 2636-37, entry 319, record group 331; see also verdict in Tani Hisao’s trial in Nanking, reprinted in Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (February 1991): 68.

  160. Soldiers torched buildings: Harries and Harries, Soldiers of the Sun, p. 223.

  160. The zone leaders could not put out these fires: Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 51.

  160. By the end of the first few weeks: IMTFE judgment; “German Archival Materials Reveal ‘The Great Nanking Massacre,’” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (May 1991); Lewis and Margaret Smythe, letter to friends, March 8, 1938, Jarvis Collection.

  160. They burned down the Russian legation embassy: Hsu Chuang-ying (witness), testimony before the IMTFE, p. 2577; A. T. Steele, “Japanese Troops Kill Thousands: ‘Four Days of Hell’ in Captured City Told by Eyewitness; Bodies Piled Five Feet High in Streets,” Chicago Daily News, December 15, 1937; James McCallum, diary entry for December 29, 1937, Yale Divinity School Library.

  160. The Japanese reserved American property for special insult: Reader’s Digest (July 1938).

  160. “remarkable”: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document starting on page 214, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China; Kröger, “Days of Fate in Nanking.”

  161. Japanese soldiers devastated the countryside: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” report no. 21, document starting on page 114, submitted by Chinese farmers on January 26, 1938, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China.

  161. The Japanese also used acetylene torches: Bates, testimony before the IMTFE, pp. 2635-36; Kröger, “Days of Fate in Nanking.”

  161. Soldiers were permitted to mail back: IMTFE judgment; Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 37.

  161. More than two hundred pianos: Bates, testimony before the IMTFE, p. 2636.

  161. In late December the Japanese: History Committee for the Nationalist Party, Revolutionary Documents, 1987, vol. 109, p. 311, Taipei, Republic of China.

  161. They coveted foreign cars: Lewis and Margaret Smythe, letter to friends, March 8, 1938, Jarvis Collection.

  161. (Trucks used to cart corpses: Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 14 (John Rabe to Japanese embassy, December 17, 1937, document no. 9).

  161. But the Japanese also invaded Nanking University Hospital: Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 14, 1937; Bates, testimony before the IMTFE, pp. 2365-36.

  161. A German report noted that on December 15: An excerpt of a verbal presentation by Mr. Smith of Reuters about the events in Nanking on December 9-15, 1937, in “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document starting on page 178, written in Hankow on January 1, 1938, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China.

  161. “Even handfuls of dirty rice”: “The Sack of Nanking: An Eyewitness Account of the Saturnalia of Butchery When the Japanese Took China’s Capital, as Told to John Maloney by an American, with 20 Years’ Service in China, Who Remained in Nanking After Its Fall,” Ken (Chicago), June 2, 1938, reprinted in Reader’s Digest (July 1938). George Fitch was the source behind this article.

  161. In January 1938, not one shop: Fitch, “Nanking Outrages,” January 10, 1938, Fitch Collection.

  162. The harbor was practically empty of ships: Commanding Officer to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked the U.S.S. Oahu), intelligence summary for the week ending February 20, 1938, February 21, 1938, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929-42, folder A8-21/FS#3, box 195, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.

  162. Most of the city lacked electricity: Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 99. By late January electricity was available in certain selected buildings in Nanking and water sometimes ran from lower hydrants; Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937-40, December 29, 1937; “Work of the Nanking International Relief Committee, March 5, 1938,” Miner Searle Bates Papers, Yale Divinity School Library, p. 1; Xingzhengyuan xuanchuanju xinwen xunliansuo (News Office of the Executive Yuan Publicity Bureau), Nanjing zhinan (Nanking Guidebook) (Nanking: Nanjing xinbaoshe, 1938), p. 49. (Information here comes from Mark Eykholt’s unpublished dissertation at the University of California at San Diego.) For more information on the Japanese massacre of power plant employees, see Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937-40, December 22, 1937, p. 125; and George Fitch diary, copy enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attaché E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations, National Archives. Fitch reported that the employees “who had so heroically kept the plant going” had been taken out and shot on the grounds that the power company was a government agency (it was not). “Japanese officials have been at my office daily trying to get hold of these very men so they could start the turbines and have electricity. It was small comfort to be able to tell them that their own military had murdered most of them.”

  162. (Many women chose not to bathe: Mark Eykholt (author of unpublished dissertation on life in Nanking after the massacre, University of California, San Diego), telephone interview with the author.

  162. People could be seen ransacking houses: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937-40, February 10, 1938, p. 189.

  162. On Shanghai Road in the Safety Zone: Ibid., January 9, 1938, p. 149; January 12, 1938, p. 153; January 27, 1938, p. 172.

  162. This activity jump-started the local economy: Ibid., January 20, 1938, p. 163.

  162. On January 1, 1938, the Japanese inaugurated: “A Short Overview Describing the Self-Management Committee in Nanking, 7 March 1938,” in “Deutsche Botschaft China,” German diplomatic reports, document starting on page 103, National History Archives, Republic of China; Minnie Vautrin diary 1937-40, December 30, 1937, and January 1, 1938; IMTFE Records, court exhibits, 1948, World War II War Crimes Records Collection, box 134, entry 14, record group 238, p. 1906, National Archives; Commanding Officer C. F. Jeffs to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked the U.S.S. Oahu), intelligence summary for the week ending April 10, 1938, April 11, 1938, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929-42, folder A8-21/FS#3, box 195, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.

  162. Running water, electric lighting: Commanding Officer C. F. Jeffs to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked the U.S.S. Oahu), intelligence summary for the week ending April 10, 1938, April 11, 1938, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929-42, folder A8-21/FS#3, box 195, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.

  162. Chinese merchants endured: Ibid.; “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document dated March 4, 1938, starting on page 107, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China; “A Short Overview Describing the Self-Management Committee in Nanking, 7 March 1938,” in “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document no. 103.

  162. The Japanese also opened up military shops: “Deutsche Botschaft Chi
na,” document dated May 5, 1938, starting on page 100, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China.

  162. The Chinese puppet government compounded the poverty: “A short Overview Describing the Self-Management Committee in Nanking, 7 March 1938,” in ibid., document starting on page 103.

  163. “We are now doing an authorized plundering”: Ibid.

  163. Far more alarming than the exploitation of the populace: For information on the drug trade, see Bates, testimony before the IMTFE, pp. 2649-54, 2658.

  163. Some even tried to use opium to commit suicide: Elizabeth Curtis Wright, My Memoirs (Bridgeport, Conn.: Winthrop Corp., 1973), box 222, Yale Divinity School Library.

  163. Others turned to crime: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document dated March 4, 1938, starting on page 107, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China.

  163. Japanese employers treated many of the local Chinese laborers: Tang Shunsan, interview with the author, Nanking, People’s Republic of China, July 26, 1995.

  164. The Japanese even inflicted medical experiments: Sheldon Harris, Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-1945, and the American Cover-up (London: Routledge, 1994), pp. 102-12.

  165. The Japanese authorities devised a method of mass control: “From California to Szechuan, 1938,” Albert Steward diary, entry for December 20, 1939, private collection of Leland R. Steward.

  165. The dreaded famine never struck: Lewis Smythe, “War Damage in the Nanking Area,” pp. 20-24; Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937-40, May 5, 1938.

  166. The gardens and farms inside the city walls: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937-40, May 21, 1938; “Notes on the Present Situation, March 21, 1938,” p. 1, Fitch Collection, Yale Divinity School Library.

  166. But there is no evidence to suggest: Mark Eykholt, telephone interview with the author.

  166. They also began an aggressive inoculation program: Ibid. While the Japanese used deadly biological warfare against other cities, it is clear that they took precautions to protect Japanese-occupied territories like Nanking from epidemics, probably because of the presence of Japanese nationals in those areas.

  166. Children of Western missionaries also remember: Angie Mills, telephone interview with the author.

  166. sprayed with Lysol: letter dated February 12, 1939 by unidentified author, Forster Collection, RG 8, Box 263, Yale Divinity School Library.

  166. In the spring of 1938, men started to venture back to the city: Eykholt interview.

  167. Occasionally there was underground resistance: Ibid.

  167. The Japanese remained in the former capital: Author’s interviews with survivors.

  CHAPTER 8: JUDGMENT DAY

  169. In March 1944, the United Nations: “Judgment of the Chinese War Crimes Military Tribunal on Hisao Tani, March 10, 1947,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (February 1991): 68.

  170. During the trials: Xu Zhigeng, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 219, 223, 226, 228.

  170. One of the most famous exhibits: Television documentary on Wu Xuan and Luo Jing, aired July 25, 1995, Jiangsu television station channel 1.

  171. A Japan Advertiser article: Xu Zhigeng, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 215-16.

  171. The focal point of the Nanking war crimes trials: Ibid., pp. 218-30.

  172. The scope of the trial was staggering: For statistics on the IMTFE, see Arnold Brackman, The Other Nuremberg: The Untold Story of the Tokyo War Crimes Trials (New York: Morrow, 1987), pp. 9, 18, 22; World War II magazine, January 1996, p. 6.

  173. “At the IMTFE, a thousand My Lais emerged”: Ibid., p. 9.

  173. The prosecution learned: IMTFE transcript.

  173. Only one in twenty-five American POWs died: Ken Ringle, “Still Waiting for an Apology: Historian Gavan Daws Calling Japan on War Crimes,” Washington Post, March 16, 1995; author’s telephone interview and electronic mail communication with Gavan Daws. According to Daws, the death-rate figure for all Allied POWs for the Japanese was 27 percent: 34 percent for Americans, 33 percent for Australians, 32 percent for the British and under 20 percent for the Dutch. In contrast, the death rate for all Western Front Allied military POWS of the Germans (excluding Russians) was 4 percent. For more information, see Gavan Daws, Prisoners of the Japanese: POWs of World War II in the Pacific (New York: Morrow, 1994), pp. 360-61, 437.

  173. “The Rape of Nanking was not the kind of isolated incident”: Brackman, The Other Nuremberg, p. 182.

  174. “let loose like a barbarian horde”: IMTFE judgment.

  174. “chastise the Nanking government”: IMTFE judgment.

  174. To atone for the sins of Nanking: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, pp. 3-4.

  175. “I am happy to end this way”: Ibid., p. 47.

  175. “either secretly ordered or willfully committed”: IMTFE judgment, p. 1001.

  175. Unfortunately, many of the chief culprits: Buruma, The Wages of Guilt, p. 175; Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, pp. 45-48.

  175. The information about Nakajima Kesago comes from Kimura Kuninori, Koseiha shogun Nakajima Kesago [Nakajima Kesago, General of the Individualist Faction]. Tokyo: Kôjinsha, 1987.

  176. The information about Yanagawa Heisuke comes from Sugawara Yutaka, Yamatogokoro: Fukumen shogun Yanagawa Heisuke Seidan [Spirit of Japan: Elevated Conversation from the Masked Shogun Yanagawa Heisuke]. Tokyo: Keizai Oraisha, 1971, p. 166. (Mention of his death by heart attack on January 22, 1945, is on p. 234.)

  176. “Many would find it difficult”: Herbert Bix, “The Showa Emperor’s Monologue” and the Problem of War Responsibility.” The Journal of Japanese Studies, summer 1992, vol. 18, no. 2, p. 330.

  177. “a priceless historical treasure”: author interview with John Young of the China Institute. In 1957, Young was a professor at Georgetown University and part of a group of scholars who had secured permission to microfilm some of the Japanese Army and Navy Ministries archives seized by American occupation forces in 1945. The following year came the abrupt decision of the United States government to return the documents to Japan—a tremendous blow to Young and the others. (“I was beyond shock, I tell you,” Young recalled. “I was flabbergasted!”) As a result of this decision, only a small portion of the Japanese military archives were microfilmed before they were boxed up and returned to Japan in February 1958. The greatest regret of his life, Young said, was his failure to foresee this decision, which would have given him and the other scholars the time to microfilm the most important papers in the collection.

  The circumstances behind the return was mysterious, and continue to baffle to this day the historians involved in the microfilm project. “This was something I could never understand,” Edwin Beal, formerly of the Library of Congress, said during a telephone interview in April 1997. “We were told that returning these documents was a matter of high policy and should not be questioned.”

  Years later, John Young heard rumors that the returned documents were used by the Japanese government to purge those from their ranks who had not been sufficiently loyal to the wartime regime.

  177. seriously criticized: In all fairness, it must be pointed out that many of the facts in Bergamini’s book are accurate and that he did discover, in the course of his research, many important new Japanese-language documents for World War II historians. Therefore, scholars have often found Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy to be a valuable—even if flawed and confusing—resource.

  178. “In order to conquer the world”: W. Morton, Tanaka Giichi and the Japan’s China Policy (Folkestone, Kent, Eng.: Dawson, 1980), p. 205; Harries and Harries, pp. 162-63.

  178. Currently no reputable historian: Letter from Rana Mitter to author, July 17, 1997.

  178. “inconceivable”: Information about Herbert Bix’s opinion comes from author’s telephone interview with Bix.

  179. Back in 1943, Prince Mikasa Takahito: “A Royal Denunciation of Horrors: Hirohito’s Brother—an Eyewitness—Assails Japan’s Wartime Brutality,
” Los Angeles Times, July 9, 1994; Merrill Goozner, “New Hirohito Revelations Startle Japan: Emperor’s Brother Says He Reported WWII China Atrocities to Him in 1944; National Doubts Them Now,” Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1994; Daily Yomiuri, July 6, 1994, p. 7.

  179. “It helps them acquire guts”: Daily Yomiuri, July 6, 1994, p. 7.

  179. “bits and pieces”: Goozner, “New Hirohito Revelations Startle Japan,” Chicago Tribune, July 7, 1994.

  179. “extreme satisfaction”: Asahi, Tokyo edition, December 15, 1937.

  179. Prince Kanin’s telegram: Ibid.

  179. silver vases: Asahi, Tokyo edition, February 27, 1938.

  180. Prince Asaka, for one, retired: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy , p. 46. Information about Asaka’s golf course development comes from Daijinmei Jiten [The Expanded Biographical Encyclopedia], (Tokyo: Heibonsha, 1955). vol. 9, p. 16.