- The Nanjing Massacre -

Of all the hideous crimes committed by the Japanese, none were worse than those situations in which women, victims of the same killings as the men, were first forced to endure sexual assault and rape by the Japanese! Frequently, after being raped, the women suffered a cruel death at the hands of Japanese soldiers. "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." (Military Commission of the Kuomintang, Political Department: "A True Record of the Atrocities Committed by the Invading Japanese Army," compiled July 1938)

A resident of Nanjing seized by the Japanese during the occupation of the city was forced to become a cook for the Japanese army. He left the following recollections after he escaped:

It was the 16th [of December] and I . . . was walking along the street. The black smoke still hung in the air and the bright red flames continued to smolder. The corpses of my fellow countrymen were so numerous that it was frightening. So many female bodies were among the corpses . . . and eight out of ten had been stabbed in the stomach, their intestines strewn out onto the ground. There were even mothers lying next to their blood-smeared foetuses. . . . The breasts of many of these women had been completely severed from their bodies and, if not cut off, their chests had at least been stabbed with a bayonet so that the blood and flesh were mixed in an indistinguishable mass.

Another person who was involved in the work of burying corpses outside of Nanjing had this to say:

There were hundreds of corpses strewn all over the countryside; dozens of bodies were laying in sewers, ponds, fields, and haystacks. The tragic scene was beyond description. As for the mutilated female corpses, their faces were ashen, their cheeks broken open, and their teeth dislodged. Blood was dripping out of the sides of their mouths, their breasts had been cut off, and their chests and bellies pierced through by bayonets. Their intestines had been dragged out of their bodies, their stomachs kicked in and their bodies stabbed randomly by bayonets.

During the Nanjing massacre, many female corpses were left laying in the streets in this condition both in and outside of the city. In the vicinity of Xinzhong Gate on the east end of the old city wall foundation was a grass hut in which a sixty or seventy-year-old woman was found dead with her genitals swollen and ripped open. North of Sheepskin Lane, a young girl lay dead on the ground, her stomach punctured and her intestines strewn all over the ground. Her eyes were wide open and glaring straight ahead and blood was streaming out of the side of her mouth. On Rear Guyilang Street lay a girl who could not have been more than twelve or thirteen years old. She lay dead on the ground, her underwear torn, eyes closed, and mouth agape. These facts show that our female compatriots not only died under the murderous knives of the Japanese, they also endured great humiliation before dying.

The rapes and indiscriminate killings committed by the Japanese forces were astonishingly inhumane. Not only did the Japanese military command fail to take action to restrain such atrocities, but, on the contrary, the authorities tolerated this behavior. They thought that by condoning such behavior the rank and file soldiers would be able to satisfy their animal desires temporarily. And allowing the soldiers to "get their kicks" in this way would stave off feelings of homesickness and combat fatigue. Thus, wherever the Japanese went, rape became a common, everyday practice. All over China it was the same: in Shanghai, Suzhou, Wuxi, Hangzhou, . . . in all of the places put under the iron heel of the Japanese forces women suffered similar fates. But our Nanjing female compatriots suffered an even more cruel fate than the others.

After the occupation of Nanjing, the soldiers immediately formed into groups and roamed throughout the city. When they came across a woman, they would take turns raping her. A report on these atrocities can be found in the appendices of Harold John Timperley's book "A Foreigner's Eyewitness Account of the Atrocities Committed by the Japanese."6 Almost the entire account is devoted to crimes involving rape. A few items selected from Timperley's book will suffice to show how these scattered troops from the Japanese army went about committing the crime of rape.7

At noon, December 14th, on Chien Ying Hsiang Road8, Japanese soldiers entered a house and took four girls, raped them, and let them return [home] in two hours.9

On the night of December 14th there were many cases of Japanese soldiers entering Chinese houses and raping women or taking them away.10

On the night of December 15th, a number of Japanese soldiers entered the University of Nanking buildings at Tao Yuen and raped thirty women on the spot, some by six men.11

On the evening of the 15th [of December] at San Tian Hsiang many soldiers got into the house and raped many women.12

On December 16, seven girls (ages ranged from 16 to 21) were taken away from the home at the Military College. Five returned. Each girl was raped six or seven times daily -- reported December 18th.13

On December 18th, evening, 450 terrified women fled for shelter to our office and spent the night in our yard. Many have been raped.14

The incidents outlined in the preceding section are only those from the first few days after the initial Japanese invasion of Nanjing. In reality, "the violent rapes . . . committed during the initial six week occupation and during the four weeks following Matsui and Muto's entry into the city continued without abatement on a grand scale." ("Verdicts of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East," p.458.) During these times, "every day, twenty-four hours a day, there was not one hour when an innocent woman was not being dragged off somewhere by a Japanese soldier." (Dagong Daily)

These atrocities were not committed exclusively by the rank and file soldiers; both high and low-ranking military officers also took part. For example, at eight o'clock on the evening of December 16th, two Japanese military officers and two rank and file soldiers broke into 18 Ganheyan [Road]. First, they drove out all of the men, and then the women in the neighboring areas fled. But the women trapped inside had no chance to escape and the Japanese soldiers took turns raping them. Another example from the afternoon of that same day involved a mother and daughter with the surname Ma who lived together and took care of one another in a house on Fuxing Street. A Japanese military officer accompanied by two soldiers suddenly broke into their home and, in broad daylight, violently raped both mother and daughter. (Archives of the Nanjing Municipal Intermediate People's Court, number 1-35116.) One of the main culprits in the Nanjing massacre was the senior Japanese general Tani Hisao himself. Once, just outside of Zhonghua Gate, he violently raped Mrs. Ding Lan along with three other women. On another occasion, he raped Liu Yuqin and four other women on Saihong Bridge. In yet another instance, he raped more than ten women in the area around Yellow Mud Pond. (See: "The Public Prosecution of Tani Hisao, One of the Leading Participants in the Nanjing Massacre," Heping Daily, 31 December 1946.) According to testimony from eyewitnesses to these crimes, it was a common occurrence to see Japanese military officials carry off many women to their residences where they would take turns raping them.

The Japanese who committed such violent rapes not only satisfied their own animal desires, but also aroused wild laughter among their fellow soldiers by humiliating, beating up, and teasing the women.

These packs of animals frequently carried out gang rapes. Many women were brutally raped by several, or even several dozen, bestial soldiers. Moreover, the end result of these rapes was often death; the defiled women's corpses could be found all over the city. According to eyewitness accounts, the corpses were frequently found laying face-up on the ground, underwear torn, genitals swollen and ruptured, with their lower abdomens bulging out like drums.

In addition to defiling ordinary women, even the very young and old were not passed over by the Japanese.

For example, one time a young girl, barely nine years old, was raped at the same time as her seventy-five year old grandmother. On December 26th, more than ten Japanese soldiers who forced their way into the University of Nanking16 brutally raped two women and one young girl who was barely eleven years old. This unfortunate young girl passed away two days after surviving this gang rape. According to eyewitness reports, the blood-stained, swollen and ruptured area between the girl's legs created a disgusting scene difficult for anyone to look at directly. On February 5th, three Japanese soldiers broke into the Sanpailou neighborhood in which the residence of an old lady with the surname Zheng was located. While one soldier guarded the entrance, the other two took turns raping this woman who must have been at least sixty years old. The woman's grandson would not stop crying, so [the soldiers] stabbed him twice.

Therefore, the women raped by the Japanese during the massacre included wives of professors, Buddhist nuns, workers, teachers, office workers, students, and housewives. But more than that which is recorded above, the account which follows will make one so furious that one's hair will stand on end.

At the end of February, a family of refugees returned to their home at 7 Xinkai Road. Upon their arrival, all fourteen family members were killed by the Japanese. The youngest girl was just fourteen years old. Her dead body was found laying on top of two adjacent tables. Her upper body was clothed but her lower body was totally exposed and blood was smeared all over the place. Her stomach had been stabbed twice. Another girl, a little older, was found dead on her bed in conditions identical to her younger sister. The mother was found laying dead on the floor beside the table still cradling in her arms a baby slightly more than one year old. The baby had also been stabbed with a knife, and its intestines were strewn out onto the floor. It was an atrocious scene, not fit to be seen by human eyes. International Committee member Xu Chuanyin went with some others to inspect the scene. They took many pictures and handed them over to an American member of the International Committee as well as to the Japanese ambassador. [In a similar incident,] "a certain widow who lived just outside West Water Gate had three daughters aged eighteen, thirteen, and nine. All three girls were gang raped. The youngest girl died right there on the spot, while the other two girls lost consciousness. . . . 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 Company, 1939, p.55.) These sorts of incidents illustrate how the Japanese soldiers often behaved worse than animals.

Even pregnant women did not escape the horrors of the Nanjing massacre. "At half-past seven o'clock on the evening of December 19th, two Japanese soldiers raped a seventeen-year-old young woman who was nine months pregnant. She not only had a miscarriage, but also suffered a complete mental collapse." ("Verdicts of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East," p.451.) After seizing a pregnant mother from the family of a vegetable farmer outside of Hongwu Gate, the Japanese raped her, cut open her belly with their knives, and pulled out the foetus. Another pregnant woman was being carted off to be raped by the Japanese when her mother-in-law came forward and attempted to stop them. But the Japanese soldiers, more cruel than rabid jackals, just kicked the old woman out of the way and turned their knives on her pregnant daughter-in-law. The unborn child, only a few months old17, came trickling out of the woman and within a few minutes both of their lives, mother and child, were extinguished. (Xinhua Daily, 24 February 1951.)

After being raped, frequently the women would be slaughtered. On one occasion, a Japanese military captain issued an "instruction" to his subordinates stating: "in order to avoid too many problems arising, . . . kill the women after you are done [with them]." ("A Pictorial History of the Japanese Atrocities") For a long time now, many women brutalized by the Japanese have suffered in silence, choking back their tears and swallowing their hatred towards the Japanese. But we still have the written accusations of one woman who narrowly escaped with her life from the Japanese. This account serves as proof of the veracity of the Japanese atrocities. This particular female victim, who originally lived at 6 Chien Ying Hsiang Road, was taken to some unknown location in the city along with some other women. These women spent their days washing clothes and their nights suffering through repeated rapes by the Japanese. Those who were relatively advanced in years would be raped anywhere from ten to twenty times each night; the younger and more beautiful ones would be raped even more. On January 2nd, two Japanese soldiers tied up this particular woman and carted her off to a desolate, abandoned schoolhouse. They stabbed her body in ten places: four slashes to the neck, one slash across the wrist, one slash across the face, and four slashes across the back. The Japanese soldiers thought she had died of her wounds, so they just abandoned her there. A person passing by spotted her body, took her to a hospital, and her life was saved. There were many women who lived through such brutal rapes, but frequently they caught venereal diseases from which they suffered greatly the rest of their lives.

Many of our male compatriots put up a fight to protect their loved ones, but were killed by the Japanese soldiers for their actions. For instance, when one woman was being raped inside a courtyard on Shanxi Road, her husband stepped forward to rescue her. He died on the end of a Japanese bayonet. At the entrance to Pearl River Road lived a seventy-nine-year-old woman who was raped by the Japanese. Her son fought fiercely against the Japanese but was killed. In one incident, while one of these bestial soldiers was raping a woman, another soldier used his hand to cover the mouth of a five-month-old baby who would not stop crying; the baby was smothered to death!

Many women preferred death to humiliation, and they were subjected to the even more cruel methods of killing meted out by the Japanese. There are many records of this sort of killing.

At South Gate Lane Bridge, the corpses of three young women were found, all approximately twenty years old. The upper parts of their underpants were intact with their two hands holding on tightly to the waistline of the garments, but the lower parts of their underwear were ripped and tattered. Their hair was dishevelled, their eyes were gouged out, and their noses and ears were cut off. They died as a result of this torture which was carried out as punishment for resisting rape.

In the Sanfang Lane Flower Market, as well as other places, as many as nine women were found with their limbs amputated; they met their deaths with a defiant look in their eyes. And by Banshanyuan Road, there were seven women, some in their forties and others in their sixties and seventies, whose stomachs had been stabbed and breasts cut off, their hair was in knots and their underwear tattered. They died with their heads held high, showing a recalcitrant look in their eyes, their mouths open, defiantly baring their teeth.

("Tragic Scenes from Nanjing After the Occupation," 20 February 1938, Dagong Daily, Wuhan edition.)

The inevitable result of putting up a resistance to the raping soldiers and to doing one's best to defy the Japanese was to meet with especially cruel punishment. Women who put up a resistance to being raped would frequently be nailed onto a wall and have their bodies cut open as a warning to others. Other times, the soldiers would ram a long wooden rod up between the women's legs, shove the implement in deep, and then discard the women in the street.

Sometime after [the initial atrocities], because of condemnation from international public opinion, daytime raping became less and less common. Instead, during the day the Japanese soldiers would just keep their eyes open and then come knocking at the door in the evening. Otherwise, the Japanese would employ traitorous Chinese to do their bidding for them, empowering them to use threats of violence or the promise of reward to accomplish their aims. Facing such circumstances, many parents hastily married off their daughters believing that doing so would protect their daughters from becoming targets of the violent Japanese sexual attacks. Little did they know that as soon as the Japanese laid eyes upon even a simple and crude bridal sedan chair or carriage they would, as a rule, order it to halt and seize the new bride, carrying her off to their barracks or other residences. Some were only detained for a few days, but others were kept for up to ten days or two weeks before being released from captivity. Many of these new brides felt such intense shame [after these incidents] that they committed suicide. When something like this happened, it was not uncommon for tense negotiations to take place between the [deceased] bride's father and his erstwhile son-in-law. (See, Nanjing Historical Archives, "A Report on the Miserable Conditions in the Occupied Areas," Volume 6, "Capital City Under an Iron Heel," unpublished.)

In addition to committing brutal, on the spot rapes, the Japanese also kidnapped many women to staff the "pleasure chambers" or "social clubs" which they set up in order to satisfy their lust over a longer period of time. They treated these women like so much worthless property or foodstuff to be carted off in large quantities. For instance, there were more than 2,000 Suzhou women, more than 3,000 Wuxi women, and 20,000 Hangzhou women who were kidnapped. They were divided into three grades: upper, middle, and lower class. They were assigned numbers in order to satisfy their captors' sexual desires more conveniently. At that time, on Nanjing's New Street, Iron Tube Lane, in addition to many other places, there were these "pleasure chambers." Once inside, some of the women went on a voluntary hunger-strike and after only a few days they had starved to death. But soon after, other women were captured to take their places.

It is impossible to list all the reams of documents regarding atrocities involving rape committed by the Japanese in Nanjing. But the most shocking materials are in the form of pictures taken by the Japanese themselves. Captured Japanese soldiers were caught red-handed with photographs of their female victims.

After raping the women of Nanjing, Japanese soldiers would often force them to lift up their dresses to reveal their genitals and to have photographs taken. Some particularly bestial soldiers shamelessly squatted beside the women who had undergone the most severe and humiliating abuse and forced their victims to pose for "group photographs." In one of the worst cases, a picture was found of an abused woman who was forced to use her own hands to reveal her genitals for the Japanese to photograph.

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