Rape Of Nanjing

John Hancock

Rape of Nanjing

In December of 1937, the Japanese Imperial Army marched into China's capital city of Nanjing and began to murder 300,000 out of 600,000 civilians and soldiers in the city. The six weeks of carnage would become known as the Rape of Nanjing and represented the single worst atrocity during the World War II era in either the European or Pacific theaters of war.

The actual military invasion of Nanjing was preceded by a tough battle at Shanghai that began in the summer of 1937. Chinese forces there put up surprisingly stiff resistance against the Japanese Army which had expected an easy victory in China. The Japanese had even bragged they would conquer all of China in just three months. The stubborn resistance by the Chinese troops upset that timetable, with the battle dragging on through the summer into late fall. This infuriated the Japanese and whetted their appetite for the revenge that was to follow at Nanjing.

After finally defeating the Chinese at Shanghai in November, 50,000 Japanese soldiers then marched on toward Nanjing. Unlike the troops at Shanghai, Chinese soldiers at Nanjing were poorly led and loosely organized. Although they greatly outnumbered the Japanese and had plenty of ammunition, they withered under the ferocity of the Japanese attack, and then engaged in a chaotic retreat. After just four days of fighting, Japanese troops smashed into the city on December 13, 1937, with orders issued to "kill all captives" thus beginning the Rape of Nanjing.

Their first concern was to eliminate any threat from the 90,000 Chinese soldiers who surrendered. To the Japanese, surrender was an unthinkable act of cowardice and the ultimate violation of the rigid code of military honor drilled into them from childhood onward. So they looked at Chinese POWs with utter contempt, viewing