A Chinese-language edition of this book is available to those interested in obtaining the Chinese character names of people and places mentioned in the text. Write to Commonwealth Publishing Company Ltd., 87 Sung-Chiang Road, 4F, Taipei, Taiwan, Republic of China, or E-mail the publisher, Charles Kao, at ckao@cw.com.tw.
INTRODUCTION
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4. Years later experts at the . . . IMTFE: “Table: Estimated Number of Victims of Japanese Massacre in Nanking,” document no. 1702, Records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, court exhibits, 1948, World War II War Crimes Records Collection, box 134, entry 14, record group 238, National Archives.
5. One historian has estimated: estimates by Wu Zhikeng, cited in San Jose Mercury News, January 3, 1988.
5. Romans at Carthage: Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn, The History and Sociology of Genocide: Analyses and Case Studies (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990), p. 76.
5. The monstrosities of Timur Lenk: Arnold Toynbee, 1947, p. 347, cited in Leo Kuper, Genocide: Its Political Use in the Twentieth Century (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1981), p. 12.
5. Indeed, even by the standards of history’s most destructive war: For European numbers, see R. J. Rummel, China’s Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1991), p. 138.
6. It is likely that more people died in Nanking: Statistics from the Bombing of Dresden come from Louis L. Snyder, Louis Snyder’s Historical Guide to World War II (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982), pp. 198–99.
6. Indeed, whether we use the most conservative number: Brigadier Peter Young, ed., The World Almanac Book of World War II (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: World Almanac Publications/Prentice-Hall, 1981), p. 330. For numbers on the blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, see Richard Rhodes, The Making of the Atomic Bomb (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996), pp. 734, 740. Rhodes claims that by the end of 1945 some 140,000 people had died in Hiroshima and 70,000 in Nagasaki from the nuclear explosions. The dying continued, and after five years a total of some 200,000 in Hiroshima and 140,000 in Nagasaki had perished from causes related to the bombing. But it is significant to note that even after five years the combined death toll in both cities is still less than the highest casualty estimates for the Rape of Nanking.
6. An estimated 20, 000–80, 000 Chinese women were raped: Catherine Rosair, “For One Veteran, Emperor Visit Should Be Atonement,” Reuters, October 15, 1992; George Fitch, “Nanking Outrages,” January 10, 1938, George Fitch Collection, Yale Divinity School Library; Li En-han, a historian in the Republic of China, estimates that 80,000 women were raped or mutilated. (“‘The Great Nanking Massacre’ Committed by the Japanese Army as Related to International Law on War Crimes,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China [May 1991]: 74).
6. Many soldiers went beyond rape: Author’s interviews with survivors.
6. “bestial machinery”: Christian Kröger, “Days of Fate in Nanking,” unpublished diary in the collection of Peter Kröger; also in the IMTFE judgment, National Archives.
7. “Nothing the Nazis under Hitler would do”: Robert Leckie, Delivered from Evil: The Saga of World War II (New York: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 303.
10. During the conference I learned of two novels: R. C. Binstock, Tree of Heaven (New York: Soho Press,1995); Paul West, Tent of Orange Mist (New York: Scribners, 1995); James Yin and Shi Young, The Rape of Nanking: An Undeniable History in Photographs (Chicago: Innovative Publishing Group, 1996).
12. “erecting a cathedral for Hitler in the middle of Berlin”: Gilbert Hair, telephone interview with the author.
CHAPTER 1 : THE PATH TO NANKING
19. For as far back as anyone could remember: Tanaka Yuki, Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II (Boulder, Co.: Westview, 1996), pp. 206–8. (Although Tanaka is the author’s surname, he uses an American-style of presenting his name as Yuki Tanaka for this English-language book.) According to Tanaka, the modern Japanese corrupted the ancient code of bushido for their own purposes. The original code dictated that warriors die for just causes, not trivial ones. But during World War II, officers were committing ritual suicide for the most absurd of reasons, such as for stumbling over their words when reciting the code. The concept of loyalty in bushido was also replaced by blind obedience, and courage by reckless violence.
20. It is striking to note: Meirion Harries and Susie Harries, Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial Japanese Army (New York: Random House, 1991), p. vii.
21. “A parallel situation”: Samuel Eliot Morison, “Old Bruin”: Commodore Matthew C. Perry 1794–1858 (Boston: Atlantic–Little, Brown, 1967), p. 319.
22. “As we are not the equals of foreigners,”: Delmer M. Brown, Nationalism in Japan: An Introductory Historical Analysis (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1955), p. 75. (Italics mine.) (Brown’s citation: Satow, trans., Japan 1853–1864, or Genji Yume Monogatari, p. 4).
24. “destined to expand and govern other nations”: Taiyo, July 1905, quoted in ibid., p. 144.
24. Modernization had earned for the country: Ibid., p. 152.
26. The population had swollen: Paul Johnson, Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties (New York: Harper-Collins, 1991), p. 189.
26. “There are only three ways left to Japan”: W. T. deBary, ed., Sources of the Japanese Tradition (New York, 1958), pp. 796–97, quoted in ibid., p. 189.
27. Why, the military propagandist Sadao Araki: Quoted in ibid., p. 189.
27. Nor were Japan’s covetous intentions: Ibid., p. 393. For more information about the ambitions of some Japanese ultranationalists regarding the United States during that era, see Records of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, 1882–1954, Office of Naval Intelligence, Intelligence Division—Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, box 525, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives. As early as December 1932, a U.S. naval intelligence report noted that best-sellers in Japan tended to be books on war—particularly on the possibility of American-Japanese war. This report and others analyzed the content of Japanese books, articles, pamphlets, and lectures that dwelled on the topic of a Japanese invasion of the United States. Some of these publications bore titles such as “The Alaska Air Attack,” “The Assault on Hawaii,” and “The California Attack.” Here are a few examples of Japanese propaganda from the early 1930s that made their way into American naval intelligence files (the following names come directly from an English-language report and may be misspelled):
—A lecture by Captain K. Midzuno revealed that the Japanese military not only developed strategies for attacking Pearl Harbor from the air but also foresaw the possibility of American raids on Tokyo.
—In Japan in Danger: A Great Naval War in the Pacific Ocean, Nakadzima Takesi described scenarios of a victorious war waged by the Japanese against the United States through naval battles and air bombardment.
—In Increasing Japanese-American Danger, Vice Admiral Sesa Tanetsugu wrote that he was convinced of the inevitability of Japanese-American conflict.
—Ikedzaki Talakta presented in The Predestined Japanese-American War a compilation of articles on the subject of the inevitability of a Japanese-American war. A newspaper review lauded this book as “a work of passionate love for the native land” and assured readers that “if Japan draws its sword, the false, haughty America will be powerless” (February 3, 1933, report, p. 260).
27. “Before a new world appears”: Delmer Brown, Nationalism in Japan, p. 187; see also Okawa Shumei, “Ajia, Yoroppa, Nihon (Asia, Europe, and Japan),” p. 82, translated in “Analyses,” IPS document no. 64, pp. 3–4 (italics added).
29. To prepare for the inevitable war with China: Tessa Morris-Suzuki, Showa: An Inside History of Hirohito’s Japan (New York: Schocken, 1985), pp. 21–29.
30. “We appear to be standing in the vanguard of Asia”: Quoted in Ian Buruma, The Wages of Guilt (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994), pp. 191–92.
30. “Why are you crying about one lousy frog?”: Ibid., p. 172.
30. “deep ambivalence in Japanese society”: Letter from Rana Mitter to author, July 17, 1997.
31. It was reputed that more than one teacher: Harries and Harries, Soldiers of the Sun, p. 41.
31. A visitor to one of its elementary schools: Iritani Toshio, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1991), pp. 177, 191.
31. abuse: Ibid.
32. “I do not beat you because I hate you”: Ibid., p. 189.
32. The intensity of the training in Japan: 106/5485, February 1928 report, p. 136, Papers of the British War Office in the Public Record Office, Kew, London. An OSS report on Japanese army training summarizes the process of indoctrination: “The smallest infraction or error in regulations brings instant and severe punishment. Act tough—shout, don’t talk—scowl, don’t look pleasant—be tough—have no desires—forget your family at home—never show emotionalism—do everything the hard way—don’t let yourself be comfortable—train and discipline your desires for comfort, food and water—suffer pain and hardship in silence—you are a son of Heaven”; report no. 8974-B, dissemination no. A-17403, distributed December 28, 1943, Research and Analysis Branch Divisions, Intelligence Reports “Regular” Series, 1941–45, box 621, entry 16, record group 226, National Archives.
32. “During these impressionable years”: 106/5485, February 1928 report, p. 84, Papers of the British War Office.
33. That August, while attempting to land thirty-five thousand fresh troops: David Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy (New York: Morrow, 1971), p. 11.
33. In the 1930s Japanese military leaders: John Toland, The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire (New York: Random House), p. 47. “Crush the Chinese in three months and they will sue for peace,” Minister Sugiyama predicted.
CHAPTER 2: SIX WEEKS OF TERROR
37. “specialist in thought control, intimidation and torture”: David Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1971), p. 16.
37. “a beast”: Kimura Kuninori, Koseiha Shogun Nakajima Kesago [Nakajima Kesago, General of the Individualist Faction]. (Tokyo: Kôjinsha, 1987), p. 212.
37. “masked shogun”: Sugawara Yutaka, Yamatogokoro: Fukumen Shogun Yanagawa Heisuke Seidan [Spirit of Japan: Elevated Conversation from the Masked Shogun Yanagawa Heisuke]. (Tokyo: Keizai Oraisha, 1971), p. 9.
37. Consider the example of Suchow: Wu Tien-wei, “Re-study of the Nanking Massacre,” Journal of Studies of China’s Resistance War against Japan (China Social Science Academy), no. 4 (1994): 43; Central Archive Bureau, China No. 2 Historical Archive Bureau; Jilin Province Social Science Academy, ed., Pictorial Evidence of the Nanjing Massacre (Changchun, PRC: Jilin People’s Publishing House, 1995), p. 31; Dick Wilson, When Tigers Fight: The Story of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1945 (New York: Viking, 1982), p. 69.
38. The invasion, according to the China Weekly Review: China Weekly Review (March 1938).
38. “There is hardly a building standing”: Manchester Guardian reporter Timperley wrote this account, which was telegraphed to London by another correspondent on January 14, 1938.
38. On December 7, as the Japanese troops: For this section on Asaka’s replacement of Matsui, see Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, ch. 1, p. 22.
39. “not good”: Kido, Nikki, 468, quoted in ibid., p. 23.
39. “sparkle before the eyes”: Nakayama Yasuto, testimony before IMTFE, “Proceedings,” p. 21893 (see also pp. 33081ff., 37238ff., and 32686 [Canberra]), quoted in ibid., p. 23.
39. “The entry of the Imperial Army”: Quoted in ibid.; see also IMTFE judgment, pp. 47171–73, National Archives.
40. After Asaka heard this report: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 24; Information on footnote on Tanaka Ryukichi comes from Pictorial Evidence of the Nanjing Masacre, p. 35. (Bergamini’s book is poorly footnoted so it must be used with caution. However, the citation suggests that he interviewed Tanaka.)
41. “BATTALION BATTLE REPORTER”: Quoted in Jilin Province Social Science Academy, ed., Pictorial Proof of the Nanking Massacre , p. 62. The English translation of this command appears in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 115.
42. “To deal with crowds of a thousand”: Kimura, “The Battle of Nanking: Diary of 16th Division Commander Nakajima,” Chuo Kouron Sha [Tokyo] (November 24, 1984). Nakajima’s diary appeared in a December 1984 supplement to the Japanese periodicalHistorical Figures. The English translation of parts of his diary appears in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 106.
43. “It was a magnificent view”: Azuma Shiro, Waga Nankin Pura-toon [My Nanjing Platoon] (Tokyo: Aoki Haruo, 1987).
44. fifty-seven thousand: IMTFE verdict.
45. “The [Japanese] army encountered great difficulties”: Quoted in Honda Katsuichi, Studies of the Nanking Massacre (Tokyo: Ban-sei Sha Publishing, 1992), p. 129.
45. “After three or four hours”: Kurihara Riichi, Mainichi Shimbun, August 7, 1984.
46. “The result was a mountain of charred corpses”: Honda Katsuichi, The Road to Nanking (Asahi Shimbun, 1987), quoted in Yin and Young, p. 86.
46. After the soldiers surrendered en masse: For this section, “The Murder of Civilians,” see Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen (History Department, Nanjing University), “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing—An English Translation of a Classified Chinese Document on the Nanjing Massacre,” translated from Chinese into English by Robert P. Gray (pgray@pro.net). See also China News Digest, special issue on the Nanjing massacre, part 1 (March 21, 1996).
46. Corpses piled up outside the city walls: Gao Xingzu, “On the Great Nanking Tragedy,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (November 1990): 70.
47. These atrocities shocked many of the Japanese correspondents: The English translations of the Japanese journalists’ accounts of the Nanking massacre appear in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, pp. 52–56.
47. “One by one the prisoners fell down”: Ibid.
47. “On Hsiakwan wharves”: Imai Masatake, “Japanese Aggression Troops’ Atrocities in China,” China Military Science Institute, 1986, pp. 143–44.
48. “Those in the first row were beheaded”: Omata Yukio, Reports and Recollections of Japanese Military Correspondents (Tokyo: Tokuma Shoten, 1985).
48. “Before the ‘Ceremony of Entering the City’”: Quoted in Moriyama Kohe, The Nanking Massacre and Three-All Policy: Lessons Learned from History (Chinese-language edition, People’s Republic of China: Sichuan Educational Publishing, 1984), p. 8.
48. “I’ve seen piled-up bodies”: Quoted in Yang Qiqiao, “Refutation of the Nine-Point Query by Tanaka Masaaki,” Baixing (Hong Kong), no. 86 (1985).
49. “Women suffered most”: Quoted in Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (November 1991): 70.
49. Surviving Japanese veterans claim: Azuma Shiro, undated letter to the author, 1996.
49. Soldiers were even known to wear amulets: George Hicks, The Comfort Women: Japan’s Brutal Regime of Enforced Prostitution in the Second World War (New York: Norton, 1994), p. 32.
49. “At first we used some kinky words”: Interview with Azuma Shiro in In the Name of the Emperor (film), produced by Nancy Tong and co-directed by Tony and Christine Choy, 1995.
49. “After raping, we would also kill them”: Quoted in Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking,” p. 70.
50. “Perhaps when we were raping her”: Shiro Azuma, undated letter to the author, 1996.
50. raping some twenty women: “The Public Prosecution of Tani Hisao, One of the Leading Participants in the Nanking Massacre,” Heping Daily, December 31, 1946.
50. “Either pay them money or kill them”: Quoted in Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 45.
50. “Great Field Marshal on the Steps of Heaven”: Quoted in Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 39.
50. The next day the Western news media: Hallett Abend, “Japanese Curbing Nanking Excesses,” New York Times, December 18, 1937.
51. “I now realize that we have unknowingly wrought”: Okada Takashi, testimony before IMTFE, p. 32738.
51. “I personally feel sorry”: Ibid., pp. 3510–11.
51. “Never before”: Dick Wilson, When Tigers Fight, p. 83.
51. “the Japanese army is probably the most undisciplined army”: Ibid., p. 83.
51. “It is rumored that unlawful acts continue”: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 43; IMTFE exhibit no. 2577; “Proceedings” (Canberra), p. 47187.
52. “My men have done something very wrong”: Hidaka Shun-rokuro’s testimony, IMTFE, p. 21448.
52. “Immediately after the memorial services”: Hanayama, p. 186, quoted in Bergamini, p. 41.
52. “The Japanese Expeditionary Force in Central China”: Yoshimi Yoshiaki, “Historical Understandings on the ‘Military Comfort Women’ Issue,” in War Victimization and Japan: International Public Hearing Report (Osaka-shi, Japan: Toho Shuppan, 1993), p. 85.
53. But in 1991 Yoshimi Yoshiaki unearthed: For English-language information on Yoshimi’s discovery in the Defense Agency’s archives, see Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (February 1992): 62. The discovery made the front page of the Asahi Shimbun just as Prime Minister Miyazawa Kiichi was visiting Seoul, South Korea, in January 1992.
54. “a black hole”: Theodore Cook, telephone interview with the author.
54. “To this day”: “Some Notes, Comparisons, and Observations by Captain E. H. Watson, USN (Ret) (Former Naval Attaché) After an Absence of Fifteen Years from Japan,” Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder P9–2/EF16#23, box 284, record group 38, National Archives.
54. In her book The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Ruth Benedict, The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1946).
56. “Sub-Lieutenants in Race”: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 21. The Osaka newspaper Mainichi Shinbun as well as the Tokyo newspapers Nichi Nichi Shinbun and the Japan Advertiser (English edition) all reported this killing competition.
56. “One day Second Lieutenant Ono said to us”: Quoted in Wilson, When Tigers Fight, p. 80.
57. “All new recruits are like this”: Ibid.
57. “They had evil eyes”: Oral history interview with Tominaga Shozo, in Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook, Japan at War: An Oral History (New York: New Press, 1992), p. 40.
58. “loyalty is heavier than a mountain”: Azuma Shiro, undated letter to the author, 1996.
59. “I remember being driven in a truck”: Quoted in Joanna Pitman, “Repentance,” New Republic, February 10, 1992, p. 14.
59. “Few know that soldiers impaled babies”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 3: THE FALL OF NANKING
61. A city long celebrated: For Nanking’s literary and artistic legacy, ancient history, and the treaty to end the Opium Wars, see Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. 24 (1993).
61. And it was in Nanking in 1911: Encyclopedia Americana, vol. 29 (1992).
62. The picture would include the intricately carved stone statues: for Drum Tower history, see Julius Eigner, “The Rise and Fall of Nanking,” National Geographic (February 1938). Eigner’s article, which includes color photographs, provides an excellent description of life in Nanking immediately before the massacre.
62. “like a coiling dragon and a crouching tiger”: Encyclopedia of Asian History, vol. 3 (1988).
62. The first invasion occurred: On the invasions of Nanking, see Julius Eigner, “The Rise and Fall of Nanking,” National Geographic (February 1938): 189; Jonathan Spence, The Search for Modern China (New York: Norton, 1990), pp. 805, 171–74.
63. Vestiges of the old China remained in the streets: Julius Eigner, “The Rise and Fall of Nanking”; Anna Moffet Jarvis, “Letters from China, 1920–1949,” box 103, record group 8, Jarvis Collection, Yale Divinity School Library; interview with Pang Kaiming, a survivor of the Nanking massacre and former ricksha puller, July 29, 1995.
63. Surely, he proclaimed: Rev. John Gillespie Magee, “Nanking Yesterday and Today,” lecture given over the Nanking Broadcasting Station, May 28, 1937, archives of David Magee.
64. In the summer of 1937: Author’s interviews with survivors.
64. “Are they giving us an air-raid practice?”: Chang Siao-sung, letter to friends, October 25, 1937, Ginling correspondence, folder 2738, box 136, series IV, record group 11, UBCHEA, Yale Divinity School Library. The facts in her letter were confirmed by the author in her 1997 telephone interview with Chang Siao-sung, now residing in Waltham, Massachusetts.
65. Frank Xing, now a practitioner of Oriental medicine: Frank Xing, interview with the author, San Francisco, January 28,1997.
65. My own grandparents nearly separated forever: Interviews with my maternal grandmother, Yi-Pei Chang, my mother, Ying-Ying Chang, and my aunt, Ling-Ling Chang, May 25, 1996, in New York City.
67. Long files of Chinese soldiers: For descriptions of Nanking as the fighting continued in Shanghai in November, see Commanding Officer J. J. Hughes to Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked “Yangtze Patrol, U.S.S. Panay”), November 8, 1937, intelligence summary for week ending November 7, 1937, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder A8–2/FS#2, box 194, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.
67. More than two hundred thousand Japanese troops: 793.94/11378A, general records of the Department of State, record group 59, National Archives; Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 9.
67. Neither really trusted the other: Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige (1937: The Tragic Ballad of Nanking) (Taipei: Shenzi Chubanshe, 1995), pp. 31–32.
68. “Either I stay or you stay”: Ibid., pp. 27–31.
68. Before reporters he delivered a rousing speech: 106/5353, January 2, 1938, Papers of the British War Office in the Public Record Office, Kew, London; Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige, p. 33.
68. “dazed if not doped”: Harries and Harries, Soldiers of the Sun, p. 219.
68. He sweated so profusely: Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige, p. 33.
69. First Chiang ordered most government officials to move: Commander E. J. Marquart to Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked “Yangtze Patrol, U.S.S. Luzon [Flagship]”), November 22, 1937, intelligence summary for week ending November 21, 1937, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder A8–2/FS#2, box 194, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.
69. Within days official-looking cars packed with luggage: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, November 16 and 19, December 4, 1937, pp. 71–72, 94–95, Yale Divinity School Library.
69. And then, in mid-November, fifty thousand Chinese troops: Ibid., November 17, 1937, p. 72.
69. Arriving from upriver ports: Commanding Officer J. J. Hughes to Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked “Yangtze Patrol, U.S.S. Panay”), November 29, 1937, intelligence summary for week ending November 28, 1937, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder A8–2/FS, box 194, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.
69. By December an estimated ninety thousand Chinese troops: Sun Zhaiwei, “Nanjing datusha yu nanjing renkou (The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population),” Nanjing shehuai kexue (Nanking Social Science Journal) 37, no. 3 (1990): 79.
69. The troops transformed the face of Nanking: F. Tillman Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking After Chinese Command Fled,” New York Times, December 22, 1937; “21 U.S. Citizens Now in Nanking: Only Eight Heed Warning to Evacuate Besieged City,” Chicago Daily News, December 7, 1937; 793.94/11466, General Records of the Department of State, microfilm, record group 59, National Archives; Harries and Harries, Soldiers of the Sun, p. 219.
69. In early December the military also resolved: A. T. Steele, “Nanking Ready for Last Stand; Defenders Fight Only for Honor: Suburban Areas Aflame; Chinese May Destroy City in Defeat,” Chicago Daily News, December 9, 1937, p. 2; Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking,” p. 38; Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 7, 1937, p. 99, Yale Divinity School Library.
70. “an outlet for rage and frustration”: Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking,” New York Times, p. 38.
70. On December 2, hundreds of boxes of Palace Museum treasures: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 2, 1937, p. 93, Yale Divinity School Library.
70. Six days later, on December 8, Chiang Kai-shek: For information on the departure of Chiang, see Reginald Sweetland, “Chiang Flees to Escape Pressure of ‘Red’ Aides,” Chicago Daily News, December 8, 1937; Frank Tillman Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of City after Chinese Command Fled,” New York Times, December 22, 1937, p. 38; 793.94/12060, report no. 9114, December 11, 1937 (day-by-day description of Japanese military maneuvers), restricted report, General Records of the Department of State, record group 59, National Archives.
70. During the battle of Shanghai: For statistics on the Chinese and Japanese air forces, see Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige, p. 18. See also Julian Bloom, “Weapons of War, Catalyst for Change: The Development of Military Aviation in China, 1908–1941” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Maryland, n.d.), San Diego Aerospace Museum, document no. 28–246; Rene Francillon, Japanese Aircraft of the Pacific War (London: Putnam, 1970); Eiichiro Sekigawa, Pictorial History of Japanese Military Aviation, ed. David Mondey (London: Ian Allan, 1974); Robert Mikesh and Shorzoe Abe, Japanese Aircraft, 1910–1941 (Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 1990).
71. During the battle of Shanghai, Italian-trained Chinese pilots: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 11.
71. On December 8, the day Chiang and his advisers left the city: A. T. Steele, “China’s Air Force, Disrupted by Superior Planes of Foes, Leaves Nanking to Its Fate,” Chicago Daily News, December 8, 1937.
71. Second, the government officials who moved to Chungking: Nanking Massacre Historical Editorial Committee, ed., (Zhongguo dier lishe dang an gan guan, Nanjing shi dang an guan) Archival Documents Relating to the Horrible Massacre Committed by the Japanese Troops in Nanking in December 1937, No. 2, National Archives, Nanking Municipal Archives (Nanking: Jiangsu Guji chubanshe [Jiangsu Ancient Books Publisher], November 1987), p. 46.
71. Third, the troops did not come from the same regions: Wei Hu, former paramedic for the Chinese military in Nanking, interview with the author, January 17, 1997, in Sunnyvale, California.
71. Fourth, many of the “soldiers” in this army: Ibid.
71. Tired, hungry, and sick: Archival Documents Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1987), p. 46.
71. Worst of all, Chinese soldiers: Ibid.
72. “protect innocent civilians”: Quoted in Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 32; Xu Zhigeng, Lest We Forget: Nanjing Massacre, 1937 (Beijing: Chinese Literature Press, 1995), p. 43.
72. “Our army must fight to defend”: Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige, pp. 98–99; Xu Zhigeng, Lest We Forget, p. 44.
72. Privately, however, Tang negotiated for a truce: General Records of the Department of State, 793.94/11549, record group 59, National Archives; “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document no. 203 in the German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Xingdian, Taipei County, Republic of China. Chiang’s rejection of the proposal came as a shock to Tang and the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone. In a letter of January 24, 1938, W. Plumer Mills wrote, “General Tang had assured us that he was confident that Gen. Chiang would accept the truce proposal, so we were surprised to receive a wire from Hankow the next day to the effect that he would not”; from the family archives of W. Plumer Mills’s daughter, Angie Mills.
73. On December 10, the Japanese waited for the city to surrender: Xu Zhigeng, Lest We Forget, p. 44; Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 29.
73. “From the 9th to the 11th of December”: Tang Sheng-chih to Chiang Kai-shek, telegram, reprinted in Archival Documents Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1987), p. 35.
73. At noon on December 11, General Gu Zhutong placed a telephone call: Sun Zhaiwei, 1397 Nanjing Beige, pp. 122–23.
74. Tang received a telegram: Ibid, p. 123.
74. At 3: 00 A.M. on December 12: Ibid., p. 124.
75. But then electrifying reports reached Tang: Yin and Young, The Rape of Nanking, p. 38.
75. Sperling agreed to take a flag: Commanding Officer C. F. Jeffs to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked the U.S.S. Oahu), February 14, 1938, intelligence summary for the week ending February 13, 1938. The report included an excerpt from a missionary letter (from George Fitch’s diary, name not given), which was not given to the press for fear of reprisals from the Japanese; 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; see also George Fitch, My Eighty Years in China (Taipei: Mei Ya Publications, 1974), p. 102.
75. That afternoon, just minutes before his commanders: Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige, pp. 124–26.
76. Not surprisingly, the order to retreat: Ibid.
76. Their soldiers continued to fight the Japanese: Wilson, When Tigers Fight, p. 70.
76. Even in the larger, tragic scheme of things: Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking”; A. T. Steele, “Reporters Liken Slaughter of Panicky Nanking Chinese to Jackrabbit Drive in US,” Chicago Daily News, February 4, 1938; F. Tillman Durdin, “U.S. Naval Display Reported Likely Unless Japan Guarantees Our Rights; Butchery Marked Capture of Nanking,” New York Times, December 18, 1937; author’s interviews with survivors.
77. But before the gate lay a scene: For details of the congestion, fire and deaths before the gate and the desperate attempts to cross the river, see A. T. Steele, “Panic of Chinese in Capture of Nanking, Scenes of Horror and Brutality Are Revealed,” Chicago Daily News, February, 3, 1938, p. 2; Arthur Menken, “Witness Tells Nanking Horror as Chinese Flee,” Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1937, p. 4; Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking,” p. 38; Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 102; Wilson, When Tigers Fight; Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing”; author’s interviews with survivors.
77. Tang witnessed much of this chaos: For information on Tang’s journey to the docks, see Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige, pp. 133–35.
78. Terrified crews tried to ward off the surging mob: Author interview with survivor Niu Xianming in Montery Park, California, and interviews with other survivors in Nanking, People’s Republic of China.
78. That evening a fire broke out on Chungshan Road: How the fire started near the Water Gate is a matter of dispute. A. T. Steele wrote that Chinese soldiers torched the Ministry of Communications—a beautiful $1 million office building and ceremonial hall—to destroy all the ammunition that had been stored inside [“Power of Chinese in Capture of Nanking, Scenes of Horror and Brutality Are Revealed,” Chicago Daily News, February 3, 1938]. Another speculates that stray Japanese shells might have ignited nearby to ignite the ammunition; still another believes that two military vehicles had collided and burst into flames in the tunnel under the Water Gate [Dick Wilson, When Tigers Fight, pp. 66–85].
79. Never experienced a day as dark: Sun Zhaiwei, pp. 133–35.
CHAPTER 4: SIX WEEKS OF HORROR
81. Approximately half the original population: Sun Zhaiwei, “The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population,” pp. 75–80.
82. Weary of fire, weary of bombardment: Frank Tillman Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking after Chinese Command Fled,” New York Times, December 22, 1937, p. 38; Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 14, 1937, p. 110.
82. Eyewitnesses later claimed: Hsu Chuang-ying, testimony before IMTFE, Records from the Allied Operational/Occupation Headquarters, IMTFE transcript, entry 319, record group 331, p. 2562, National Archives. Hsu testifies: “The Japanese soldiers, when they entered the city—they were very very rough, and they were very barbarous; they shoot at everyone in sight. Anybody who runs away, or on the street, or hanging around somewhere, or peeking through the door, they shoot them—instant death.” Several newspaper articles, diary entries, and letters echo Hsu’s words. “Any person who, through excitement or fear, ran at the approach of the Japanese soldiers was in danger of being shot down,” F. Tillman Durdin wrote (New York Times, December 22, 1937). “Often old men were to be seen face downward on the pavement, apparently shot in the back at the whim of some Japanese soldier.” See also George Fitch’s diary entries reprinted in Reader’s Digest (July 1938): “To run was to be plugged instantly,” he wrote. “Many were shot in seemingly sporting mood by the Japs, who laughed at the terror plainly visible on faces of coolies, merchants, and students alike. It reminded me of a picnic of devils.”
83. Unlike thousands of hapless civilians: Tang Shunsan, interview with the author, Nanking, July 25, 1995.
87. Live burials: Committee for the Historical Materials of the Nanking Massacre and the Nanjing Tushuguan (Nanking Library), ed., Nanjing datusha shiliao bianji weiyuanhei (Source Materials Relating to the Horrible Massacre Committed by the Japanese Troops in Nanking in December 1937) (Nanking: Jiangsu guji chubanshe [Jiangsu Ancient Books Publisher], July 1985), p. 142.
87. Mutilation: On nailing prisoners to wooden boards, see Ling Da, “Xuelui hua jingling (Using Blood and Tears to Describe Nanjing),” Yuzhou Feng (The Wind of the Universe) 71 (July 1938), reprinted in ibid., pp. 142–44. Ling Da was not a witness but someone who interviewed a survivor called Tan.
On the crucifixion of prisoners on trees and electrical posts and bayonet practice, see Zhu Chengshan, Qinghua rijun Nanjing datusha xingcunzhe zhengyanji (The Testimony of the Survivors of the Nanking Massacre Committed by the Invading Japanese) (Nanking: Nanjing daxue chubanshe [University of Nanking Press], December 1994), p. 53; Source Materials Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1985), pp. 142–44.
On the Japanese carving strips of flesh from victims, see Archival Documents Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1987), pp. 68–77.
On eye-gouging, see Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
On atrocities with zhuizi needles, see an article written by a soldier (identity unknown) who escaped from Nanking, “Jingdi shouxing muji ji (Witnessing the Beastly Action of the Japanese in Nanking),” Hankou Dagongbao, February 7, 1938, reprinted inSource Materials Relating to the Horrible Massacre, p. 129.
87. Death by fire: Xu Zhigeng, Nanjing datusha (The Rape of Nanking) (Nanking: Jiangshu Wenyi Chubanshe [Jiangshu Literary Publisher], November 1994), p. 74; Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing”; Archival Documents Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1987), pp. 68–77.
88. Death by ice: Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
88. Death by dogs: Archival Documents Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1987), pp. 68–77.
88. The Japanese saturated victims in acid: Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
88. impaled babies: Xu Zhigeng, The Rape of Nanking, p. 138.
88. hung people by their tongues: Chia Ting Chen, “Hell on Earth: The Japanese Army in Nanking During 1937–1938: A Barbaric Crime Against Humanity,” Chinese American Forum 1, no. 1 (May 1984).
88. One Japanese reporter who later investigated: Wilson, When Tigers Fight, p. 82.
88. Even genitals, apparently, were consumed: “Witnessing the Beastly Action of the Japanese in Nanking,” p. 128. (Stories of castration, along with pierced vaginas and anuses, are also mentioned on page 68 of Draft Manuscript of the History Relating to the Horrible Massacre Committed by the Japanese Troops in Nanking in December 1937.)
89. Susan Brownmiller, author of the landmark book Against Our Will: Susan Brownmiller, telephone interview with the author.
89. Estimates range from as low as twenty thousand: Rosair, “For One Veteran, Emperor Visit Should Be Atonement”; Fitch, “Nanking Outrages,” January 10, 1938, Fitch Collection; Li En-han, “Questions of How Many Chinese Were Killed by the Japanese Army in the Great Nanking Massacre,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (August 1990): 74.
89. Many such children were secretly killed: Oral history interview with Lewis Smythe by Cyrus Peake and Arthur Rosenbaum, Claremont Graduate School, December 11, 1970, February 26 and March 16, 1971, box 228, record group 8, Yale Divinity School Library.
90. “uncounted”: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” report no. 21, starting on page 114, in the German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China, submitted by the farmers Wang Yao-shan, 75, Mei Yo-san, 70, Wang Yun-kui, 63, and Hsia Ming-feng, 54, “to the German and Danish gentlemen who were staying in the cement factory near Nanking on 26 January 1938.”
90. The Japanese raped Nanking women from all classes: Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking.”
90. Some actually conducted door-to-door searches: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, March 8, 1938, p. 212.
90. This posed a terrible dilemma: Ibid., December 24, 1937, p. 127.
90. For instance, the Japanese army fabricated stories: Hsu Shuhsi, ed., Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, no. 266 (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore: Kelly & Walsh, 1939), p. 128.
90. Some soldiers employed Chinese traitors: Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
90. An estimated one-third of all rapes: Fitch, “Nanking Outrages,” January 10, 1938, Fitch Collection.
90. Survivors even remember soldiers: Hou Zhanqing (survivor), interview with the author, Nanking, July 29, 1995.
90. No place was too sacred: Fitch, “Nanking Outrages,” January 10, 1938, Fitch Collection.
91. “Every day, twenty-four hours a day”: Quote in Dagong Daily reprinted in Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
91. “clean the penis by her mouth”: Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, no. 436, p. 154.
91. “rammed a stick up her instead”: Dick Wilson, p. 76; Hsu, p. 123.
91. Many women in their eighties: Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking”; “All Military Aggression in China Including Atrocities Against Civilians and Others: Summary of Evidence and Note of Argument,” submitted to IMTFE by David Nelson Sutton, November 4, 1946, p. 41, National Archives.
91. Little girls were raped so brutally: Shuhsi Hsu, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, no. 428, p. 152.
91. Chinese witnesses saw Japanese rape girls under ten: Hou Zhanqing interview.
91. In some cases, the Japanese sliced open: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” report no. 21, starting on page 114, in the German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China. Another account reads: “Since the bodies of most of these young girls were not yet fully developed, they were insufficient to satisfy the animal desires of the Japanese. Still, however, they would go ahead, tear open the girls’ genitals, and take turns raping them”; Du Chengxiang, A Report on the Japanese Atrocities (Shidai Publishing Co., 1939), p. 55, reprinted in Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
91. Even advanced stages of pregnancy: Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking”; Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 30, 1937, folder 3875, box 229, record group 11, Yale Divinity School Library.
91. One victim who was nine months pregnant: IMTFE judgment, p. 451, National Archives.
91. At least one pregnant woman was kicked: Chu Yong Ung and Chang Chi Hsiang, in “All Military Aggression in China Including Atrocities Against Civilians and Others,” p. 37.
91. After gang rape, Japanese soldiers: “A Debt of Blood: An Eyewitness Account of the Barbarous Acts of the Japanese Invaders in Nanjing,” Dagong Daily (Wuhan), February 7, 1938; Xinhua Daily, February 24, 1951; Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking”; Tang Shunsan, interview with the author, Nanking, People’s Republic of China, July 26, 1995; Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
91. One of the most notorious stories of such a slaughter: The story of Hsia’s family (now Xia under the pinyin system) is told in a document describing the pictures taken at Nanking after December 13, 1937, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection, box 263, record group 8, Miscellaneous Personal Papers, Yale Divinity School Library.
92. She was to endure brain damage: Xia Shuqing (then the eight-year-old survivor), interview with the author, Nanking, July 27, 1995.
93. “While I was there”: Hsu Chuang-ying (witness), testimony before the IMTFE, Records from the Allied Operational/Occupation Headquarters, entry 319, record group 331, p. 2572, National Archives.
93. A similar story, no less grisly: Document about John Magee film no. 7 describing the pictures taken at Nanking after December 13, 1937, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
93. Many other girls, tied naked to chairs: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 27. See the photograph of one such victim in the illustrations section of this book. It is unclear whether the girl in the photograph is unconscious or dead.
93. “According to eyewitness reports”: Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
94. During the mass rape the Japanese destroyed children: For an account of smothering of infants, see George Fitch diary, entry dated December 17, 1937, quoted in Commanding Officer C. F. Jeffs to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked the U.S.S. Oahu), intelligence summary filed for the week ending February 13, 1938, folder A8–21/FS#3, box 195, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives; and James McCallum diary, January 7, 1938, Yale Divinity School Library. For an example of a child choking to death from clothes stuffed in her mouth while her mother was raped, see Chang Kia Sze, testimony of April 6, 1946, Records from the Allied Operational/Occupation Headquarters, IMTFE transcript, entry 319, record group 331, pp. 4506–7, National Archives.
94. “415. February 3, about 5 P.M.”: Hsu Shuhsi, editor, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone. Prepared under the Auspices of the Council of International Affairs, Chung King (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore: Kelly & Walsh, Ltd., 1939), p. 159.
94. “stuck a wire through his nose”: Wong Pan Sze (24 at the time of the tribunal, 15 at the time of the Rape of Nanking), testimony before the IMTFE, Records of the IMTFE, court exhibits, 1948, World War II War Crimes Records Collection, box 134, entry 14, record group 238, National Archives.
94. Perhaps one of the most brutal forms of Japanese entertainment: “Sometimes the soldiers would use bayonets to slice off the women’s breasts, revealing the pale white ribs inside their chests. Sometimes they would pierce their bayonets into the women’s genitals and leave them crying bitterly on the roadside. Sometimes the Japanese took up wooden bats, hard reed rods, and even turnips, forced the implements into the women’s vaginae, and violently beat them to death. Other soldiers stood by applauding the scene and laughing heartily”; quote from Military Commission of the Kuomingtang, Political Department, “A True Record of the Atrocities Committed by the Invading Japanese Army,” compiled July 1938, reprinted in Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing”; Wong Pan Sze testimony before the IMTFE; Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking.”
94. For instance, one Japanese soldier: Forster to his wife, January 24, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
94–95. And on December 22, in a neighborhood near the gate: Zhu Chengshan, The Testimony of the Survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, p. 50.
95. Chinese men were often sodomized: see Shuhsi Hsu, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, no. 430, p. 153. Also Dick Wilson, p. 76.
95. At least one Chinese man was murdered: “Shisou houde nanjing (Nanking After the Fall into Japanese Hands),” Mingzheng yu-gongyu 20 (January 1938). This article is based on interviews with people who escaped from Nanking and arrived in Wuhan on January 18, 1938. It is reprinted inSource Materials Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1985), p. 150.
95. A Chinese woman had tried to disguise herself: Xu Zhigeng, The Rape of Nanking, p. 115; Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige, p. 353.
95. Guo Qi, a Chinese battalion commander: Ko Chi (also known as Guo Qi), “Shendu xueluilu (Recording with Blood and Tears the Fallen Capital),” written in the first half of 1938, published in August 1938 by Xijing Pingbao, a Xian newspaper (Xijing is an older name for Xian), reprinted in Source Materials Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1985), p. 13.
95. His report is substantiated: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” report no. 21, starting on page 114, in the German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China.
95. One such family was crossing the Yangtze River: Hsu Chuang-ying (witness), testimony before the IMTFE, Records from the Allied Operational/Occupation Headquarters, entry 319, record group 331, p. 2573, National Archives. One survivor, Li Ke-he, witnessed four Japanese soldiers who, after raping a 40-year-old woman, forced her father-in-law and son to have sex with her; see Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking,” p. 68. The IMTFE records also mention a father being forced by the Japanese to rape his own daughters, a brother his sister, and an old man his son’s wife. “Breasts were torn off, and women were stabbed in the bosoms. Chins were smashed and teeth knocked out. Such hideous scenes are unbearable to watch,” the record added; court exhibits, 1948, box 134, entry 14, record group 238, p. 1706, World War II War Crimes Records Collection, National Archives.
96. Many were able to hide from the Japanese for months: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, January 23 and February 24, 1938, pp. 167, 201.
96. In the countryside women hid in covered holes: Ibid., February 23, 1938, p. 200.
96. One Buddhist nun and a little girl: John Magee to “Billy” (signed “John”), January 11, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
96. Some used disguise—rubbing soot on their faces: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 37; Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 17, 1937, p. 115.
96. One clever young woman disguised herself as an old woman: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, January 23, 1938, p. 168.
96. Others feigned sickness, such as the woman: Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, no. 408, p. 158.
96. Another woman took the advice: Forster’s undated letter to his wife, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
96. One girl barely avoided assault: John Magee, letter to his wife, January 1, 1938, archives of David Magee.
96. Those who defied the Japanese: Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
96. A schoolteacher gunned down five Japanese soldiers: Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking,” p. 68.
97. In 1937, eighteen-year-old Li Xouying: Li Xouying, interview with the author, Nanking, July 27, 1995.
100. “The question is so big”: Miner Searle Bates testimony before the IMTFE, pp. 2629–30.
100. The Chinese military specialist Liu Fang-chu: Li En-han, “Questions of How Many Chinese Were Killed by the Japanese Army in the Great Nanking Massacre,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (August 1990).
100. Officials at the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanking Massacre by Japanese Invaders: Author’s interviews with museum officials. The number 300,000 is inscribed prominently on the museum’s entrance. Honda Katsuichi, a Japanese writer, went back to Nanking a few decades later to check the stories for himself. He thinks that 200,000 Chinese were killed by the second day of the capture of the city and that by February the death toll had risen to 300,000. (Wilson, When Tigers Fight, pp. 81–82.) The Chinese historian Li En-han said that “the estimate of the total number of deaths . . . as 300,000 is absolutely reliable.” (Hu Hua-ling, “Commemorating the 53rd Anniversary of the Great Nanking Massacre: Refuting Shintaro Ishihara’s Absurdity and Lie,”Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China, November 1990, p. 27.)
100. The IMTFE judges concluded that more than 260,000 people: “Table: Estimated Number of Victims of Japanese Massacre in Nanking,” document no. 1702, box 134, IMTFE records, court exhibits, 1948, World War II War Crimes Records Collection, entry 14, record group 238, National Archives.
100. Fujiwara Akira, a Japanese historian: Hu Hua-ling, “Commemorating the 53rd Anniversary,” p. 72.
100. John Rabe, who never conducted a systematic count: John Rabe, “Enemy Planes over Nanking,” report to Adolf Hitler, in the Yale Divinity School Library. Rabe writes: “According to Chinese reports, a total of 100,000 Chinese civilians were murdered. But that seems to be an overassessment—we Europeans estimate the number to be somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000.”
100. The Japanese author Hata Ikuhiko claims: Cook and Cook, Japan at War, p. 39.
100. Still others in Japan: Ibid.
100. In 1994 archival evidence emerged: United Press International, May 10, 1994.
100. Perhaps no one has made a more thorough study: Sun Zhaiwei, “The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population,” pp. 75–80; “Guanyu nanjing datusa siti chunide yenjou (On the Subject of Body Disposal During the Nanking Massacre),” Nanjing Shehui Kexue 44, no. 4 (1991): 72–78.
100. Nanjing zizhi weiyuanhui: The setting up of such a puppet government was a longstanding custom of the Japanese in areas of China they occupied and it enabled the Japanese to preserve local structures of power and make some local elites beholden to them.
101. However, this statistic balloons still larger: Archival Documents Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1987), pp. 101–3; “150,000 Bodies Dumped in River in Nanking Massacre Affidavit,” Reuters, December 14, 1990.
102. For instance, in his paper: Wu Tien-wei, “Let the Whole World Know the Nanking Massacre: A Review of Three Recent Pictorial Books on the Massacre and Its Studies,” report distributed in 1997 by the Society for Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China.
103. The authors James Yin and Shi Young: Shi Young, telephone interview with the author.
103. They dismiss arguments from other experts: It is difficult to say how many bodies washed up along the river were eventually buried along the banks. On April 11, 1938, Minnie Vautrin wrote in her diary that a man mentioned to her that “there are reported still many dead bodies on both sides of the Yangtze and many bloated ones floating down the river—soldiers and civilians. I asked him if he meant tens or hundreds and he said it seemed to him to be thousands and thousands”; diary 1937–40, p. 247.
104. “Since return (to) Shanghai a few days ago”: “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, no. 1263, translated February 1, 1938, record group 457, National Archives. Manchester Guardian correspondent H. J. Timperley originally wrote this report, which was stopped by Japanese censors in Shanghai. (See “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, no. 1257.) His estimate of 300,000 deaths was later included in the message sent by Japanese Foreign Minister Hirota Koki to Washington, DC. The significance of this message is that the Japanese government not only knew about the 300,000 figure given by Timperley but tried to suppress the information at the time.
CHAPTER 5: THE NANKING SAFETY ZONE
106. In November 1937, Father Jacquinot de Bessage: Tien-wei Wu, “Let the Whole World Know the Nanking Massacre,” p. 16.
106. When the Presbyterian missionary W. Plumer Mills: Angie Mills to the author, February 16, 1997. In her family archives, Mills found a copy of a speech given by John Rabe on February 28, 1938, at the Foreign YMCA in Shanghai to a group of Westerners. In it he said, “I must tell you Mr. Mills is the man who originally had the idea of creating the Safety Zone. I can say that the brains of our organization were to be found in the Ping Tsang Hsiang No. 3 [the address, according to Angie Mills, of Lossing Buck’s house, where nine or ten of the Americans were living during this period, near Nanking University]. Thanks to the cleverness of my American friends: Mr. Mills, Mr. Bates, Dr. Smythe, Mr. Fitch, Mr. Sone, Mr. Magee, Mr. Forster and Mr. Riggs, the Committee was put on its feet and thanks to their hard work it ran as smoothly as could be expected under the dreadful circumstances we lived in.”
107. Interestingly enough, the Panay would later be bombed: “Sinking of the U.S.S. Panay,” ch. 11 of Some Phases of the Sino-Japanese Conflict (July–December 1937), compiled from the records of the Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet, by Captain W. A. Angwin (MC), USN, December 1938, Shanghai, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder P9–2/EF16#23, box 284, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives; “The Panay Incident,” Records of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Records of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, 1882–1954, Intelligence Division—Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, box 438, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives; “The Bombing of the U.S.S. Panay,” drawn by Mr. E. Larsen after consultation with Mr. Norman Alley, December 31, 1937, box 438, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives; Weldon James, “Terror Hours on Panay Told by Passenger,” Chicago Daily News, December 13, 1937; A. T. Steele, “Chinese War Horror Pictured by Reporter: Panay Victims Under Japanese Fire for Full Half Hour; Butchery and Looting Reign in Nanking,” Chicago Daily News, December 17, 1937; Bergamini, pp. 24–28.
108. “We were not rich”: Marjorie Wilson, telephone interview with the author.
108. “Would they kill us?”: Alice Tisdale Hobart, Within the Walls of Nanking (New York: Macmillan, 1928), pp. 207–8.
108. “We were more prepared for excesses from the fleeing Chinese”: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” German diplomatic reports, document dated January 15, 1938, starting on page 214, National History Archives, Republic of China.
109. The son of a sea captain: Details of John Rabe’s early life come from correspondence between the author and Rabe’s granddaughter, Ursula Reinhardt, and from the archives of the Siemens Company, Berlin Germany.
109. “I believe not only in the correctness of our political system”: Rabe’s account of the Rape of Nanking can be found in his report to Adolf Hitler, entitled “Enemy Planes over Nanking,” copies of which are now at Yale Divinity School Library, the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanking Massacre by Japanese Invaders, and the Budesarchiv of the Federal Republic of Germany. Information and quotes in this section not otherwise attributed come from this report.
112. “the mayor of Nanking.” Letter from John Rabe of the International Committee for Nanking Safety Zone to the Imperial Japanese Embassy, December 27, 1937, enclosure to report entitled “Conditions in Nanking,” January 25, 1938, Intelligence Division, Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, 1882–1954, Office of Naval Intelligence, box 996, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives.
113. lost an eye: Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 101.
113. only a fraction of the total food: Hsu, p. 56.
116. Han Chung Road: Hsu, p. 2.
116. mingled with civilians: Letter from John Rabe to Fukuda Tokuyasa, December 15, 1937, box 996, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives.
116. “We knew that there were a number of ex-soldiers”: George Fitch, diary entry for December 14, 1937, reprinted in My Eighty Years in China, p. 106. One of the original copies can be found in Commanding Officer C. F. Jeffs to the Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked the U.S.S. Oahu), February 14, 1938, intelligence summary filed for the week ending February 13, 1938, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, p. 5, folder A8–21/FS#3, box 195, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives. In the diary, Fitch wrote: “Not a whimper came from the entire throng. Our own hearts were lead.... How foolish I had been to tell them the Japanese would spare their lives !”
118. “All 27 Westerners in the city”: Letter from John Rabe to the Imperial Japanese Embassy, December 17, 1937, enclosure no. 8 to report entitled “Conditions in Nanking,” January 25, 1938, box 996, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives. This letter can also be found in Hsu Shuhsi, ed., Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone: Prepared under the Auspices of the Council of International Affairs, Chungking (Shanghai, Hong Kong, Singapore: Kelly & Walsh, 1939).
118. “We did not find a single Japanese patrol”: Rabe to Imperial Japanese Embassy, December 17, 1937; Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 12.
118. “Yesterday, in broad daylight”: Rabe to Imperial Japanese Embassy, December 17, 1937; Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 20.
118. “If this process of terrorism continues”: Rabe to Imperial Japanese Embassy, December 17, 1937; Shuhsi Hsu, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 17.
118. During the great Rape some Japanese embassy officials: IMTFE judgment, National Archives. See “Verdict of the International /Military Tribunal for the Far East on the Rape of Nanking,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Agression Against China, November 1990, p. 75.
118. “if you tell the newspaper reporters anything bad”: Fu Kuishan’s warning to Rabe, recorded in John Rabe diary, February 10, 1938, p. 723.
119. Once there, he would chase Japanese soldiers away: Robert Wilson, letter to family, January 31, 1938, p. 61.
120. failed to take the matter seriously: Even the Japanese embassy staff seemed secretly gleeful of the excesses of the Japanese army. When Hsu Chuang-ying caught a Japanese soldier raping a woman in a bath house and informed Fukuda, vice-consul of the Japanese embassy, of the situation, he saw that Fukuda had “a little smile on his face.” Transcript of the International Military Tribunal of the Far East. Testimony of Hsu Chuang-ying, witness. RG 311, Entry 319, page 2570-2571. Records from the Allied Operational/Occupation Headquarters, National Archives, Washington, D.C.
120. “when any of them objects [Rabe] thrusts his Nazi armband”: Copy of George Fitch diary, enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attaché E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations (Director of Naval Intelligence), Navy Department, Washington, D.C., March 7, 1938, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder P9–2/EF16#8, box 277, entry 81, record group 38; also reprinted in Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 114.
121. Once, when four Japanese soldiers in the midst of raping and looting: “Cases of Disorder by Japanese Soldiers in the Safety Zone,” filed January 4, 1938, in Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 65.
121. “bad business to shoot a German subject”: “Cases of Disorder by Japanese Soldiers in the Safety Zone,” subenclosure to enclosure no. 1–c, Intelligence Division, Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, 1882–1954, Office of Naval Intelligence, folder H–8–B Register#1727A, box 996, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives.
121. During one of his visits to the zone: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, February 17, 1938, p. 198.
121. “almost wear a Nazi badge”: Fitch, “Nanking Outrages,” January 10, 1938, Fitch Collection.
121. “He is well up in Nazi circles”: Robert Wilson, letter to family, Christmas Eve 1937, p. 6.
122. Born in 1904: Early biographical information on Robert Wilson comes from Marjorie Wilson (his widow), telephone interviews with the author.
122. The first two years for the Wilsons: Ibid.
122. After the Marco Polo Bridge incident in July: Robert Wilson, letter to family, August 18, 1937.
123. “He saw this as his duty”: Marjorie Wilson, telephone interview.
123. No doubt to dispel loneliness: Robert Wilson, letter to family, October 12, 1937, p. 15.
123. Most contained gruesome descriptions: Ibid., August 20, 1937, p. 9.
123. “a respectable museum”: Ibid., December 9, 1937, p. 35.
123. On September 25, in one of the worst air raids: Ibid., September 25 and 27, 1937; Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, September 26, 1937, p. 33.
124. Heavy black curtains were drawn: Robert Wilson, letter to family, August 23, 1937.
124. There were approximately one hundred thousand wounded Chinese veterans: Commander Yangtze Patrol E. J. Marquart to Commander in Chief, U.S. Asiatic Fleet (letterhead marked “Yangtze Patrol, U.S.S. Luzon [Flagship]),” intelligence summary for week ending October 24, 1937, October 25, 1937, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder A8–2/FS, box 194, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives; Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, October 26 and November 8, 1937, pp. 55, 64 (she writes that some 100,000 soldiers have been injured or killed in the Shanghai area).
124. Soldiers who healed were returned: Ibid.
124. Chinese doctors and nurses: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 5, 1937, p. 96; Ernest and Clarissa Forster, letter to parents, December 7, 1937, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
124. Ultimately, however, he was unable to convince them: Robert O. Wilson (witness), testimony, Records of the Allied Operational /Occupation Headquarters, IMTFE transcript, entry 319, record group 331, pp. 2531–32, National Archives.
124. By the end of the first week of December: Mrs. E. H. Forster report, December 12, 1937, from newsletter in Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
124. When Richard Brady: Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 2, 1937; A. T. Steele, “Tells Heroism of Yankees in Nanking,” Chicago Daily News, December 18, 1937.
125. “It is quite a sensation”: Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 7, 1937.
125. “naturally pretty shaky”: Ibid., December 14, 1937.
125. Wilson saw Japanese flags fluttering: Ibid.
125. They broke into the main hospital: Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking”; Rabe, “Enemy Planes over Nanking”; an excerpt from a verbal presentation by Mr. Smith of Reuters about the events of Nanking on December 9–15, 1937, document no. 178, Hankow, January 1, 1938, in “Deutsche Botschaft China,” German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China.
125. “swift kick”: Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 18, 1937.
125. He also watched soldiers burn a heap of musical instruments: Ibid., December 28, 1937.
126. “The crowning insult”: Ibid., December 19, 1937.
126. “December 15: The slaughter of civilians is appalling”: Ibid., December 15, 1937.
126. “December 18: Today marks the 6th day”: Ibid., December 18, 1937.
126. “December 19: All the food is being stolen”: Ibid., December 19, 1937.
126. “Christmas Eve: Now they tell us”: Ibid., December 24, 1937.
126. “The only consolation”: Ibid., December 30, 1937.
127. Frequently Wilson and the others saw the Japanese: Durdin, “Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking.”
127. After the fall of Nanking, the big trenches: Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 24, 1937.
127. The Japanese soldiers he confronted: Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 21, 1937, p. 6; Marjorie Wilson, telephone interview with the author; John Magee to “Billy” (signed “John”), January 11, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
127. One of the worst scenes: Marjorie Wilson, telephone interview with the author.
127. He told his wife that he would never forget the woman: Ibid.
127. “This morning came another woman in a sad plight”: J. H. McCallum, diary entry for January 3, 1937, reprinted in American Missionary Eyewitnesses to the Nanking Massacre, 1937–1938, ed. Martha Lund Smalley (New Haven, Conn.: Yale Divinity School Library, 1997), p. 39.
128. Incredible account of survival: Robert Wilson, letter to family, January 1, 1938, p. 11.
128. Struggled with a fever of 102 degrees: Ibid., December 26, 1937, p. 7.
129. Survivors of the massacre remember: James Yin (coauthor of The Rape of Nanking), telephone interview with the author. The information about McCallum comes from his research in China.
129. When the massacre and rapes gradually subsided: Margorie Wilson, telephone interview with the author.
130. Vautrin, the daughter of a blacksmith: Early biographical details about Vautrin come from Emma Lyon (Vautrin’s niece), telephone interview with the author, October 28, 1996.
130. In her diary, she never ceased to marvel: Most of the information for this section comes directly from Vautrin’s diary, 1937–40, Yale Divinity School Library. Although she used her own page-numbering system (on the top of the middle of each page), I have used the Yale Divinity School page numbers, which were stamped on the top right-hand corner of each diary page.
130. In the summer of 1937, while vacationing: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, July 2–18, 1937, p. 2.
130. Still, Vautrin refused to join the other Americans: Ibid., September 20, 1937, p. 27.
131. The embassy staff also gave her: Ibid., December 1 and 8, 1937, pp. 91, 100; 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 February 13, 1938, February 14, 1938 (includes excerpt of missionary letter, which was not given to the press for fear of reprisals from the Japanese); George Fitch diary (name not given in report), 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.
131. She labored to prepare the campus for female refugees: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 3, 6, and 7, 1937, pp. 94, 97, 98.
131. Vautrin also commissioned the sewing: Ibid., October 6, 1937, p. 41.
131. By the second week of December: Minnie Vautrin, “Sharing ‘the Abundant Life’ in a Refugee Camp,” April 28, 1938, box 103, record group 8, Jarvis Collection, Yale Divinity School Library.
131. Refugees were passing through the city: Letter to parents, probably from Forster, October 4, 1937, from Hsiakwan, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
131. Many of them, exhausted, bewildered, and hungry: 793.94/12060, report no. 9114, December 11, 1937, restricted report, General Records of the Department of State, National Archives.
131. “From 8:30 this morning”: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 15, 1937, p. 111.
131. Vautrin allowed the women and children: Ibid.
132. Vautrin’s heart sank: Ibid., December 16, 1937, pp. 112–13.
132. They certainly would have been killed: Ibid., December 16, 1937, p. 113.
132. A truck went by with eight to ten girls: Ibid., December 16, 1937, p. 114. In her diary, Vautrin records that the women screamed “Gin Ming,” but a more accurate translation of the Chinese expression for help is “Jiu Ming.”
132. “What a heartbreaking sight!”: Ibid., December 17, 1937, pp. 115–16.
133. “Never shall I forget that scene”: Ibid., pp. 117–18.
134. On at least one occasion Japanese soldiers: Ibid., December 27, 1937, p. 130.
134. “the lottery”: Source Materials Relating to the Horrible Nanking Massacre (1985), pp. 9–10.
134. On New Year’s Day 1938, Vautrin rescued: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, January 1, 1938, p. 137.
134. “fierce and unreasonable”: Ibid., December 18, 1937, pp. 119–20.
134. “The request was that they be allowed”: Ibid., December 24, 1937, p. 127.
135. “Group after group of girls”: Ibid.
135. A week after the city fell: Enclosure to report, “Conditions in Nanking,” January 25, 1938, Intelligence Division, Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, 1882–1954, Office of Naval Intelligence, box 996, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives; Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking,” p. 69.
135. Vautrin noticed that the men who arrived: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 28, 1937, p. 131.
135. In a few cases the zone leaders were successful: Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 117.
135. “This proved to be a bluff”: John Magee, letter to his wife, December 30, 1937, archives of David Magee.
136. The Draconian threats of the Japanese: Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 84.
136. “You must follow the old customs of marriage”: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 31, 1937, p. 135.
136. Vautrin observed that the Japanese soldiers: Ibid., January 4, 1938, p. 141.
136. The soldiers also forced the women: Ibid., January 6, 1938, p. 144.
136. “because a mother or some other person could vouch for them”: Ibid., December 31, 1937, p. 135.
136. After registration, the Japanese tried to eliminate the zone itself: Ernest Forster, letter of January 21, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
136. February 4 was given as the deadline: (Authorship unknown, but probably Lewis Smythe), letter of February 1, 1938, box 228, record group 8, Yale Divinity School Library.
137. Vautrin was wary of these promises: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, February 4, 1938, p. 183.
137. crammed themselves into verandas: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 18, 1937.
137. “slept shoulder to shoulder”: (unidentified author at 145 Hankow Road), letter of February 12, 1939, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
137. “Oh, God, control the cruel beastliness”: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 16, 1937, p. 114.
137. “Don’t you people worry”: Hsu Chi-ken, The Great Nanking Massacre: Testimonies of the Eyewitnesses (Taipei, 1993), pp. 56–57.
137. “You do not need to wear this rising sun emblem”: Ibid., p. 60.
138. “China has not perished”: Hua-ling W. Hu, “Miss Minnie Vautrin: The Living Goddess for the Suffering Chinese People During the Nanking Massacre,” Chinese American Forum 11, no. 1 (July 1995): 20; from Ko Chi, “Recording with Blood and Tears the Fallen Capital,” in Source Materials Relating to the Horrible Nanking Massacre (1985).
138. “She didn’t sleep from morning till night”: Huang Shu, interview with filmmaker Jim Culp; transcript from the personal archives of Jim Culp, San Francisco.
138. “It was said that once she was slapped”: Ko Chi, “Blood and Tears,” p. 16; Hua-ling W. Hu, “Miss Minnie Vautrin,” p. 18.
138. Christian Kröger, a Nazi member: Christian Kröger, “Days of Fate in Nanking,” unpublished report, January 13, 1938, archives of Peter Kröger.
138. Looting and arson made food so scarce: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, March 4, 1938, p. 208; on mushrooms, see Liu Fonghua, interview with the author, Nanking, People’s Republic of China, July 29, 1995.
138. They not only provided free rice: Lewis S. C. Smythe to Tokuyasu Fukuda, Attaché to the Japanese Embassy, enclosure no. 1 to report entitled “Conditions in Nanking,” January 25, 1938, Intelligence Division, Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, 1882–1954, Office of Naval Intelligence, box 996, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives.
138. Yet they acted as bodyguards: James McCallum, diary, December 30, 1937, Yale Divinity School Library.
139. “threatened Riggs with his sword”: Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, p. 24.
139. A Japanese soldier also threatened professor Miner Searle Bates: “Cases of Disorder by Japanese Soldiers in Safety Zone,” subenclosure to enclosure no. 1–c, Intelligence Division, Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, 1882–1954, Office of Naval Intelligence, folder H–8-B Register#1727A, box 996, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives.
139. Another soldier pulled a gun on Robert Wilson: Diary of John Magee in long letter to his wife, entry for December 19, 1937, archives of David Magee.
139. Still another soldier fired a rifle at James McCallum: “Cases of Disorder by Japanese Soldiers in Safety Zone,” subenclosure to enclosure no. 1-c, Intelligence Division, Naval Attaché Reports, 1886–1939, Records of the Office of the Deputy Chief of Naval Operations, 1882–1954, Office of Naval Intelligence, folder H–8–B Register#1727A, box 996, entry 98, record group 38, National Archives.
139. When Miner Searle Bates visited the headquarters: John Magee to “Billy” (signed “John”), January 11, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
139. Hatz defended himself with a chair: John Rabe diary, December 22, 1937, entry, pp. 341–42.
139. The zone eventually accommodated: In “Days of Fate in Nanking,” Christian Kröger states his belief that 200,000–250,000 refugees fled into the zone on December 12; Miner Searle Bates (“Preliminary Report on Christian Work in Nanking,” archives of Shao Tzuping) echoes the figure of 250,000; the estimate of 300,000 refugees in the zone comes from the IMTFE testimony of Hsu Chuang-ying, who was in charge of housing for the zone; see IMTFE transcript, entry 319, record group 331, p. 2561, National Archives.
CHAPTER 6 : WHAT THE WORLD KNEW
144. Special meals of Nanking noodles: Morris-Suzuki, Showa, p. 34.
144. Durdin, a twenty-nine-year-old reporter from Houston: Frank Tillman Durdin, telephone interview with the author, January 1996.
144. Steele was an older correspondent: A. T. Steele Collection, Arizona State University Library.
144. McDaniel was perhaps the most daring: C. Yates McDaniel, “Nanking Horror Described in Diary of War Reporter,” Chicago Tribune, December 18, 1937.
144. Not only did they write riveting stories: The first American reporter to break the full story of the massacre was Archibald Steele. When the correspondents boarded the Oahu, the twenty-nine-year-old Durdin was unable to send any dispatches out by radio because the operator said it was against regulations. But somehow Steele got his stories out. “I think he slipped him a $50 bill or something!” Durdin exclaimed decades later in “Mr. Tillman Durdin’s Statement on the News Conference—Refuting the Distortions of His Reports on the Great Nanking Massacre by the Japanese Media” (Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China, August 1992, p. 66). “I was new and young, Steele was an old hand. So he scooped me on the story.”
145. During the massacre most were so frightened: C. Yates McDaniel, “Nanking Horror Described in Diary of War Reporter,” Chicago Tribune, December 18, 1937.
146. “I didn’t know where to take him or what to do”: “Mr. Tillman Durdin’s Statement on the News Conference—Refuting the Distortions of His Reports on the Great Nanking Massacre by the Japanese Media,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China, August 1992, p. 66.
146. “I could do nothing”: McDaniel, “Nanking Horror Described in Diary of War Reporter.”
146. Details of Durdin’s and Steele’s last day in Nanking can be found in their news reports, Fitch’s diary, and in “Mr. Tillman Durdin’s Statement on the News Conference.”
146. There were also two American newsreel men: For information on Norman Alley and Eric Mayell filming the attack, see “Camera Men Took Many Panay Pictures,” New York Times, December 19, 1937.
146. Though they survived the attack unscathed: Steele, “Chinese War Horror Pictured by Reporter.”
146. While hiding with the surviving Panay passengers: Hamilton Darby Perry, The Panay Incident: Prelude to Pearl Harbor (Toronto: Macmillan, 1969), p. 226.
146. On December 13, President Franklin D. Roosevelt: United Press story printed in Chicago Daily News, December 13, 1937.
146. Filthy, cold, and wearing only blankets: “Sinking of the U.S.S. Panay,” ch. 11 of Some Phases of the Sino-Japanese Conflict (July–December 1937), compiled from the records of the Commander in Chief, Asiatic Fleet, by Capt. W. A. Angwin (MC), USN, December 1938, Shanghai, Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, Division of Naval Intelligence, general correspondence, 1929–42, folder P9–2/EF16#23, box 284, entry 81, record group 38, National Archives.
147. When Alley’s and Mayell’s footage hit the theaters: United Press story printed in Chicago Daily News, December 29, 1937; 793.94/12177, General Records of the Department of State, record group 59, National Archives.
147. “The embassy cuts no ice”: Copy of George Fitch diary, enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attaché E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations, March 7, 1938, National Archives.
147. In February they allowed a few American naval officers: 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.
147. As late as April: “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, no. 1794, translated May 4, 1938, boxes 1–4, record group 457, National Archives.
147. “The assumption I made”: “Deutsche Botschaft China,”document no. 214, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China. According to this report, the German diplomats returned to the city on January 9, 1938.
148. A machine cipher had protected: For information on the American Red Machine, see David Kahn, “Roosevelt, Magic and Ultra,” in Historians and Archivists, ed. George O. Kent (Fairfax, Va.: George Mason University Press, 1991).
148. “If they do return”: “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, no. 1171, record group 457, National Archives.
148. For example, Norman Alley: Perry, The Panay Incident, p. 232.
149. “utmost secrecy”: “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, box 2, record group 457, National Archives.
149. “If that is all the news coming out of Nanking”: Robert Wilson, letter to family, December 20, 1937.
149–“Carefully they were herded”: George Fitch diary, reprinted in
150. Reader’s Digest (July 1938).
150. “tremendously pleased”: George Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 115.
150. “spontaneous” celebrations: Reader’s Digest (July 1938).
150. “these acts were not repeated”: The Smythes, letter of March 8, 1938, box 228, record group 8, Yale Divinity School Library.
150. “the Imperial Army entered the city”: Archives of David Magee. A copy of the article can also be found in George Fitch diary, enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attaché E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations, March 7, 1938, National Archives.
151. “Now the Japanese are trying to discredit”: James McCallum, diary entry for January 9, 1938 (copy), box 119, record group 119, Yale Divinity School Library, reprinted in Smalley, American Missionary Eyewitnesses to the Nanking Massacre, p. 43.
151. “We have seen a couple of issues”: copy of George Fitch diary, entry for January 11, 1938, enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attaché E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations, March 7, 1938, National Archives.
151. “In March, a government radio station in Tokyo”: Reader’s Digest (July 1938).
151. “Now the latest is from the Japanese paper”: Lewis and Margaret Smythe, letter to “Friends in God’s Country,” March 8, 1938, box 228, record group 8, Yale Divinity School Library.
152. “All good Chinese who return”: Reader’s Digest (July 1938).
152. “a charming, lovable soldier”: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document starting on page 107, March 4, 1938, National History Archives, Republic of China.
152. In early February a Japanese general: Ernest Forster, letter of February 10, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
153. “a mother of an 11-year-old girl”: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document starting on page 134, February 14, 1938, National History Archives, Republic of China.
153. The Japanese government barred other reporters: “Red Machine” Japanese diplomatic messages, D(7–1269) #1129–A, boxes 1–4, record group 457, National Archives.
153. Superior training in the verbal arts: John Gillespie Magee, Sr., was the father of John Gillespie Magee, Jr., who served in the Royal Canadian Air Force and wrote the famous World War II poem, “High Flight.” (“Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth/And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings . . .”).
154. “Complete anarchy has reigned”: copy of George Fitch diary, diary entry for December 24, 1937, enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attaché E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations, March 7, 1938, National Archives, reprinted in Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 98.
154. “It is a horrible story to try to relate”: James McCallum, diary entry for December 19, 1937 (copy), box 119, record group 8, Yale Divinity School Library, reprinted in Smalley, American Missionary Eyewitnesses to the Nanking Massacre, p. 21.
155. “I think I have said enough”: John Magee, letter to his wife, December 31, 1937, archives of David Magee.
155. “Please be very careful of this letter”: John Magee, letter to “Billy” (signed “John”), January 11, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
155. “sensation”: Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 92.
155. “What I am about to relate”: copy of George Fitch diary, diary entry for December 24, 1937, enclosed in file from Assistant Naval Attaché E. G. Hagen to Chief of Naval Operations, March 7, 1938, National Archives, reprinted in Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, pp. 97–98.
156. “It is unbelievable that credence could be given”: Reader’s Digest (October 1938).
156. It is believed that John Gillespie Magee was the only Westerner who possessed a motion picture camera during the massacre, and that George Fitch may have borrowed this camera to capture the images of Chinese prisoners taken away by the Japanese. David Magee, son of John Magee, still owns the 16-mm-film motion picture camera used by his father to film scenes in the University of Nanking Hospital. Copies of the films are located in the family archives of Tanya Condon, granddaughter of George Fitch; David Magee, son of John Magee; and Margorie Wilson, widow of Robert Wilson. An English-language summary of the contents of the films can be found in “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document starting on page 141, German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China.
156. “as unsavory a crowd”: Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 121.
156. There was no doubt in his mind: Tanya Condon, telephone interview with the author, March 27, 1997.
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 inJournal 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 China,” 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 were 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 foundJapan’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 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.
CHAPTER 9: THE FATE OF THE SURVIVORS
183. According to Karen Parker: Karen Parker, telephone interview with the author. For Parker’s legal analyses on jus cogens and Japan’s debt to its World War II victims, see Karen Parker and Lyn Beth Neylon, “Jus Cogens: Compelling the Law of Human Rights,” Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 12, no. 2 (Winter 1989): 411–63; Karen Parker and Jennifer F. Chew, “Compensation for Japan’s World War II War-Rape Victims,” Hastings International and Comparative Law Review 17, no. 3 (Spring 1994): 497–549.
At a seminar for the 58th anniversary of the Japanese invasion of China, scholars urged Chinese victims to demand reparations from Japan. Tang Te-kang, a professor at Columbia University, said that the victims have a precedent in pressing Japan for compensation—set by Japan itself when it demanded and received reparations from China after it and seven other countries invaded China during the Qing dynasty. According to the historian Wu Tien-wei, Chinese victims are entitled to these reparations according to international law; Lillian Wu, “Demand Reparations from Japan, War Victims Told,” Central News Agency, July 7, 1994.
184. One man who was nearly roasted alive: Author’s interview with a survivor (name withheld on request).
184. Another woman whose father was executed: Liu Fonghua, interview with the author, Nanking, July 29, 1995.
185. In the local newspaper, Lewis Smythe saw articles: Oral history interview with Lewis Smythe by Cyrus Peake and Arthur Rosenbaum, Claremont Graduate School, December 11, 1970, February 26, and March 16, 1971, box 228, record group 8, Yale Divinity School Library.
185. “not only responded well to the imperialist policies”: “Zhuiyi Rikou zai Nanjing da tusha (Remember the Great Massacre at Nanking),” reprinted in Xinhua Yuebao 3, pp. 988–91.
185. “Dr. Smythe, there are 100,000 people in this city”: Peake and Rosenbaum oral history interview with Smythe.
186. In 1951 he left his position: “Biographic Sketch and Summary of Contents,” in Peake and Rosenbaum oral history interview with Smythe.
186. Bates also left Nanking: Morton G. Bates, letter to the author, October 7, 1996.
186. David Magee, son of the Reverend John Magee, is certain: David Magee, telephone interview with the author.
186. For example, Edith Fitch Swapp: Edith Fitch Swapp, telephone interview with the author; Fitch, My Eighty Years in China, p. 125. In his book, Fitch describes his problems with memory loss and his visit to a neurologist. “To my considerable relief the doctor reported there was nothing wrong with my brain; I was just suffering from nerve fag. I had been leading a pretty strenuous life, of course, and possibly the terrible memories of those Nanking days had something to do with it too” (p. 125).
186. Robert Wilson, the University of Nanking Hospital surgeon: Marjorie Wilson, telephone interview with the author.
187. “I’m about at the end of my energy”: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, April 14, 1940, p. 526.
187. “In May 1940 Miss Vautrin’s heath broke”: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, handwritten note on the bottom of the last page.
187. Her niece recalls that Vautrin’s colleagues: Description of Vautrin’s journey back to the United States, her electroshock treatment, her last communication with her family, and her suicide comes from Emma Lyon, telephone interview with the author.
187. Before he was summoned back to Germany: For Rabe’s last days in Nanking, see Minnie Vautrin, diary 1938–40, February 21, 1928, entry, p. 199; George Rosen report “Deutsche Botschaft China,” document no. 122, National History Archives, Republic of China.
188. Also, an oral history interview with one of his friends: Peake and Rosenbaum oral history interview with Smythe.
189. “I am happy I could help you”: Martha Begemann, letter to the author, April 26, 1996.
189. Rabe kept his promise to the Chinese: Description of Rabe’s efforts to publicize the Nanking atrocities and his downfall in Germany comes from Ursula Reinhardt, letters to the author, 1996–97.
190. “My grandfather looked embarrassed”: Ursula Reinhardt, letter to author, April 27, 1996, p. 2.
191. “There is no job for me at Siemens”: John Rabe diary, entry for the years 1945 and 1946, translated September 12, 1996, by Ursula Reinhardt in letter to the author, September 18, 1996.
191. “Last Sunday I was with Mommy”: Ibid.
191. “Now Mommy weighs only 44 kg”: Ibid.
191. “We suffer hunger and hunger again”: Ibid., April 18, 1946.
191. “Yesterday my petition to get de-nazified”: Ibid., April 18, 1946.
192. “If I had heard of any atrocities”: Ibid., April 18, 1946.
192. “On June the 3rd finally I was de-nazified”: Ibid., June 7, 1946.
193. “Today Mommy is out”: Ibid., June 7, 1946.
193. Within a matter of days: Renmin Zibao (People’s Daily), December 25, 1996, p. 6.
193. According to Reinhardt, the family of W. Plumer Mills also sent packages of food (CARE packages) to Rabe, which helped cure him of the skin disease that was caused by malnutrition.
193. The Kuomingtang government even offered Rabe free housing: Ibid.; see also Ursula Reinhardt, letter to the author, April 27, 1996; and Renmin Zibao, December 27, 1996.
193. In June 1948 the city of Nanking learned: Renmin Zibao, December 25, 1996.
194. Rabe died from an artery stroke: Ursula Reinhardt, letter to the author, April 27, 1996.
194. Reinhardt was pregnant and immersed in school examinations: Renming Zibao, December 27, 1996.
194. Rabe’s previous status as a Nazi: Ursula Reinhardt, telephone interview with the author.
195. Shortly after the discovery of the Rabe papers: Peter Kröger, letter to the author, October 23, 1996.
195. “Contrary to the current opinions of the Hitler government”: Kröger, “Days of Fate in Nanking.”
195. The contents were violent beyond her wildest expectations: Renming Zibao, December 27, 1996.
195. She saw the diaries as political dynamite: Ursula Reinhardt, presentation, December 12, 1996, New York City; Reinhardt, telephone interview with the author.
195. She spent fifteen hours: Ursula Reinhardt, letter to the author, December 3, 1996.
195. Shao, who was fearful that right-wing Japanese: Shao Tzuping, telephone interview with the author.
196. “It’s an incredibly gripping and depressing narrative”: David Chen, “At the Rape of Nanking: A Nazi Who Saved Lives,” New York Times, December 12, 1996, p. A3.
196. “What makes this report significant”: Asahi Shimbun, December 8, 1996.
197. “The meaning of this report”: Ibid.
CHAPTER 10: THE FORGOTTEN HOLOCAUST: A SECOND RAPE
201. “People say that the Japanese made a holocaust”: “Playboy interview: Shintaro Ishihara—candid conversation,” David Sheff, interviewer, Playboy, October 1990, vol. 37, no. 10, p. 63.
201. “Japan’s denial of the rape of Nanjing”: Yoshi Tsurumi, “Japan Makes Efforts to Be Less Insular,” New York Times, December 25, 1990.
201. In his rebuttals: Reprinted in Journal of Studies of Japanese Agression Against China (February 1991): 71.
202. “The raping of the women”: John Magee, letter to “Billy” (signed “John”), January 11, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
202. “dead bodies in every street alley”: Ibid.
203. “I think the Nanking Massacre and the rest was a fabrication”: Sebastian Moffet, “Japan Justice Minister Denies Nanking Massacre,” Reuters, May 4, 1994.
203. The violent reaction to his statements: Accounts of Nagano being burned in effigy and eggs being thrown at Japanese embassies can be found in Reuters, May 6, 1994. For information regarding his resignation, see Miho Yoshikawa, “Japan Justice Minister Quits over WWII Gaffe,” Reuters, May 7, 1994.
203. “just a part of war”: Karl Schoenberger, “Japan Aide Quits over Remark on WWII,” Los Angeles Times, May 14, 1988.
203. That month Japanese Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone dismissed him: Ibid.
203. “There was no intention of aggression”: Ibid.
203. “I didn’t say Japan wasn’t an aggressor”: Ibid.
203. By May, Okuno had been forced to resign: Ibid.
204. In August 1994, Sakurai Shin: Mainichi Daily News, August 17, 1994.
204. “the Chinese government regrets that”: Kyoto News Service, August 13, 1994.
204. “inappropriate”: Ibid.
204. While Japan was aggressive toward China: Robert Orr, “Hashimoto’s War Remarks Reflect the Views of Many of His Peers,” Tokyo Keizai, December 13, 1994.
204. “went for the money”: “Japanese Official Apologizes,” Associated Press, January 28, 1997.
204. “caused some unpleasantness”: Ibid.
205. In 1990 he was forced to resign from his position: Ibid.
205. The entire Japanese education system: Hugh Gurdon, “Japanese War Record Goes into History,” Daily Telegraph, April 20, 1994.
205. The first thing they wanted to know was who won: New York Times, November 3, 1991. Psychology professor Hiroko Yamaji told me that even Japanese college students have asked him the same question: Which country won World War II, the United States or Japan? (Interview with Yamaji, March 30, 1997, during a workshop in San Francisco.)
206. For example, in 1977 the Ministry of Education: Brackman, The Other Nuremberg, p. 27.
206. “Immediately after the occupation of Nanking”: The passages in Ienaga’s textbooks and the censors’ comments come from “Truth in Textbooks, Freedom in Education and Peace for Children: The Struggle Against the Censorship of School Textbooks in Japan” (booklet) (Tokyo: National League for Support of the School Textbook Screening Suit, 2nd. ed., June 1995).
207. In 1970, when he actually won his case: Buruma, The Wages of Guilt, p. 196.
207. “politically tone deaf”: David Sanger, “A Stickler for History, Even If It’s Not Very Pretty,” New York Times, May 27, 1993.
208. “It was not fair to describe the Nanking atrocity”: Shukan Asahi, August 13, 1982, p. 20.
208. Before Fujio’s dismissal: Information on the treatment of the Nanking massacre in textbooks before and after Fujio’s dismissal comes from Ronald E. Yates, “ ‘Emperor’ Film Keeps Atrocity Scenes in Japan,” Chicago Tribune, January 23, 1988.
209. “The Sasaki unit”: Mainichi Daily News, May 30, 1994.
On August 29, 1997, Ienaga won a partial victory in the last of his three lawsuits against the Education Ministry. The Supreme Court ordered the central government to pay Ienaga 400,000 yen in damages and concluded that the ministry had abused its discretionary power when it forced him to delete from his textbook a reference on live human experiments conducted by the Imperial army’s Unit 731 during World War II. However, the Supreme Court continued to uphold the textbook-screening system itself, ruling that the process did not violate freedom of expression, academic freedom, or the right to education, which are guaranteed under the Japanese constitution. (Japan Times, August 29, 1997)
209. “How long must we apologize”: The military historian Noboru Kojima, quoted in New York Times, November 3, 1991.
209. “hitting the lottery”: Quoted in Sonni Efron, “Defender of Japan’s War Past,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1997.
209. Ono Kenji, a factory worker: Charles Smith, “One Man’s Crusade: Kenji Ono Lifts the Veil on the Nanking Massacre,” Far Eastern Economic Review, August 25, 1994.
210. In 1996, he coedited: Ono Kenji, Fujiwara Akira, and Honda Katsuichi, ed., Nankin Daigyakusatsu o kirokushita Kogun heishi-tachi: daijusan Shidan Yamda Shitai heishi no jinchu nikki. [Soldiers of the Imperial Army Who Recorded the Nanking Massacre: Battlefield Journals of Soldiers from the 13th Division Yamada Detachment] (Tokyo: Otsuki Shoten, 1996).
210. “Not only did the Japanese distributor”: Yates, “ ‘Emperor’ Film Keeps Atrocity Scenes in Japan.”
210. “confusion and misunderstanding”: Ibid.
211. Suzuki charged that some of Honda’s and Hora’s stories: Most of the information on the debate between the illusion and massacre factions, the Kaikosha survey, and the tampering with Matsui’s diary comes from Yang Daqing, “A Sino-Japanese Controversy: The Nanjing Atrocity as History,” Sino-Japanese Studies 3, no. 1 (November 1990).
212. “enemy propaganda”: Quoted in Buruma, The Wages of Guilt, p. 119.
212. “not only on the Japanese officers”: Ibid., pp. 121–22.
213. “no less than tens of thousands”: Yang Daqing, “A Sino-Japanese Controversy: The Nanjing Atrocity as History,” Sino-Japanese Studies vol. 3, no. 1 (November 1990): 23.
213. “there was no excuse”: Ibid.
213. What happened to Azuma Shiro: Catherine Rosair, “For One Veteran, Emperor Visit Should Be Atonement,” Reuters, October 15, 1992.
213. The troubles for Motoshima Hitoshi: Buruma, The Wages of Guilt, pp. 249–50.
EPILOGUE
215. “Loot all, kill all, burn all”: Rummel, China’s Bloody Century, p. 139.
215. “I have received orders”: Quoted in Wilson, When Tigers Fight, p. 61.
216. At least one author on China: Jules Archer, Mao Tse-tung (New York: Hawthorne, 1972), p. 95.
216. R. J. Rummel, author of China’s Bloody Century, points out: Rummel, China’s Bloody Century, p. 139.
216. In areas that may have served as landing zones: Ibid., p. 138.
216. We now know that Japanese aviators sprayed fleas: Ibid., pp. 140–41.
216. The final death count was almost incredible: Ibid., pp. 149, 150, 164.
217. “the transfer of oppression”: George Hicks, The Comfort Women (New York: Norton, 1994), p. 43.
217. Japanese soldiers were forced to wash the underwear of officers: Nicholas Kristof, “A Japanese Generation Haunted by Its Past,” New York Times, January 22, 1997.
217. “act of love”: Tanaka Yuki, Hidden Horrors, p. 203.
218. “To be frank, your view of Chinese”: Xiaowu Xingnan, Invasion—Testimony from a Japanese Reporter, p. 59.
218. A Japanese officer in Nanking who bound Chinese captives: Xu Zhigeng, The Rape of Nanking, p. 74.
218. “a pig is more valuable now”: Azuma Shiro diary, March 24, 1938.
218. “Every single bullet”: General Araki speech, quoted in Maruyama Masao, “Differences Between Nazi and Japanese Leaders,” in Japan 1931–1945: Militarism, Facism, Japanism?, ed. Ivan Morris (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1963), p. 44.
219. “Who is greater, God or the emperor”: Joanna Pitman, “Repentance,” New Republic, February 10, 1992.
219. “I am going to the front”: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 10.
219. “The struggle between Japan and China”: Toshio Iritani, Group Psychology of the Japanese in Wartime (London and New York: Kegan Paul International, 1991), p. 290.
221. The less restraint on power within a government: R. J. Rummel, Death by Government (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 1995), pp. 1–2.
222. The German government has paid: Information on German postwar restitution comes from the German Information Center, New York City.
223. “Those who ignore history”: “Japan Military Buildup a Mistake, Romulo Says,” UPI, December 30, 1982.
224. In April 1997, former U.S. Ambassador Walter Mondale: Barry Schweid, AP, April 9, 1997.
224. The Rape of Nanking even made its way: William Lipinski (D-IL) drafted the resolution, copies of which can be obtained directly from his office or from the world wide web site of www.sjwar.org.
224. “In the past war”: Chinese American Forum 12, no. 3 (Winter 1997): 17.