Orgy of violence that accompanied the Japanese seizure of the Nationalist Chinese (Kuo-mintang) capital of Nanking in 1937. In a deliberate effort to cow the Chinese, the Japanese pursued a policy of terror during their invasion of China. Between 1937 and 1945, more that 21 million Chinese, most of them civilians, were killed by the Japanese (Greaves et al. 1993, 1035).
In 1937 the Japanese, who had seized Manchuria in 1931, launched an invasion against the remainder of China. They easily occupied Peking (Beijing) but met stiff resistance at Shanghai. When the Chinese withdrew to Nanking, the Japanese executed many Chinese prisoners-of-war and males of military age. After surrounding Nanking and trapping thousands of soldiers and over 200,000 civilians, the Japanese entered the city on December 13. Japanese officers ordered the execution of Chinese POWs. It was, however, undisciplined soldiers who engaged in a rampage of horror against civilians. For a month Japanese soldiers engaged in an orgy of rape. Females, from young girls to elderly women, were raped on the streets and in homes in front of family members. There were gang rapes, mutilations, and murder. According to Robert Greaves, "Survivors described horrifying sights of women impaled on stakes and children sliced in two" (Greaves et al. 1993, 1034). Some estimates for the number of people killed by the Japanese in Nanking—prisoners-of-war and civilians, men, women, and children—range as high as 300,000. More conservative estimates place the figure between 50,000 and 100,000. Many more survived rape, torture, or being wounded.
After the war a tribunal at Nanking convicted and executed three Japanese lieutenants for beheading POWs and a general, who had commanded troops in the city. General Matsui Iwane, the Japanese commander during the campaign, was tried in Tokyo by a war crimes tribunal. General Matsui, despite his orders against atrocities, was condemned to death for failing to end the horrors effectively.
Chinese wife with body of slain husband in Nanking, China, December 30, 1937.
