Throughout history, there have been many war
crimes committed throughout various different conflicts.

The Second World War saw scores
of massacre, execution and killing of innocent people and many historian’s debate when
the conflict actually began.

Some consider it to have started earlier than the Nazi invasion
of Poland, as the Japanese Army were seeking to conquer large amounts of territory in Asia
and in particular in China.

The Japanese became infamous for their war crimes and horrific
killing and treatment of people throughout the Second World War, and two men even held
a contest as to see who the first to kill 100 people with a sword was.

But in one Chinese
city, the Japanese committed horrendous war crimes as they took the city, and the massacre
of Nanking was one of the worst war crimes of the Second World War.

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In August 1937, the Japanese Army invaded
and tried to take Shanghai, but during the battle they faced heavy urban hand to hand
fighting, and also suffered heavy losses and casualties.

Initially the decision was taken
not to expand the war because of the casualty rate in the Japanese Army, then the order
was given to capture Nanking, the then capital of the Republic of China.

After the Chinese
lost Shanghai, it was likely that Nanking would fall, and to preserve the Chinese army
most of it was withdrawn.

It was planned for the Chinese to fight a war of attrition, and
it was announced that the city would fight to the death and never surrender.

The Chinese
government left for relocation as did the president, and Nanking was left in the hands
of an International Committee led by a German John Rabe.

He asked the Japanese military
leaders for a ceasefire so that the Chinese could leave the city.

The ceasefire was rejected,
and this left the city to fall to the Japanese.

Some Chinese soldiers were still hiding inside
of a Safety Zone and this became a target for the Japanese.

The massacres and war crimes associated with
the city of Nanking are believed to have happened over 6 weeks in December 1937, but they occurred
after and before this too.

As the Japanese army advanced towards the city, they conducted
horrific crimes.

On the march to the city, they beheaded, executed, assaulted and stole
from many settlements and people.

One of the most horrific stories to emerge on the march
towards the city was the story of two Japanese officers who had a race as to see who could
kill 100 people using a sword the first.

The Japanese media reported on this contest as
if it was a sporting event like a football match, with the score reported over a number
of days, but the two men involved were going through settlements executing civilians in
barbaric ways.

They were not facing the enemies in hand to
hand combat, but massacring defenceless people.

Around the city, many buildings and houses
were set on fire, and military barracks, homes which cost the city in today’s money around
100 million dollars.

The westerner’s living in the city fled, and only 27 foreigners remained,
five were journalists who remained.

Prince Asaka, the Uncle of Emperor Hirohito was assigned
to Nanking, and it’s alleged that he issued an order to kill all captives, and with this
sanctioned the massacre of the people in the city.

During the Battle of Nanking, the Japanese
forces arrived at the gates on the 9th December, and two days later dropped leaflets in the
city urging the city to surrender in 24 hours and if not there would be no mercy.

The Japanese waited for an answer for the
surrender and nothing was received, and with this General Iwane Matsui issued the army
to take Nanking by force.

The Japanese assaulted the walls of the city from different directions,
and the city was battered by heavy artillery fire and attacks from the air.

Some Chinese
soldiers tried to blend in with the enemy, but some were shot by the Chinese as they
tried to flee.

The 6th and the 116th Divisions of the Japanese Army entered the city first
on the 13th December, and they then went after the retreating Chinese army units.

The final
phase of the battle was the slaughter of Chinese soldiers by the Japanese.

They executed around
4000 Chinese soldiers disguised in plain clothes as civilians during this time.

But from the
moments that they entered the city, the assault on Nanking turned violent and quickly into
a horrific scene of war crimes.

Assaults of women, murder, arson, looting
and other atrocities were committed.

Around 20,000 women were assaulted during the occupation,
and the Japanese soldiers went door to door looking for girls, and many were killed immediately
after their horrific ordeal.

A Reverend later wrote, ‘I know not where to end.

Never I
have heard or read such brutality.

We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night and many by day.

In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval, there is a bayonet stab
or a bullet.

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People are hysterical.

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Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon
and evening.

The whole Japanese army seems to be free to go and come as it pleases, and
to do whatever it pleases.

’ Some conservative estimates place the number
of people slaughtered by the Japanese army around 100,000, but the general consensus
is that 200,000 people were killed in the massacre.

A surgeon, Robert O Wilson wrote
to his family documenting the atrocities saying, ‘The slaughter of civilians is appalling.

I could go on for pages telling of cases of rape and brutality almost beyond belief.

Two
bayoneted corpses are the only survivors of seven street cleaners who were sitting in
their headquarters when Japanese soldiers came in without warning or reason and killed
five of their number and wounded the two that found their way to the hospital.

Let me recount
some instances occurring in the last two days.

Last night the house of one of the Chinese
staff members of the university was broken into and two of the women, his relatives,
were raped.

In the University Middle School where there are 8,000 people the Japaneses
came in ten times last night, over the wall, stole food, clothing, and raped until they
were satisfied.

They bayoneted one little boy of eight who
had five bayonet wounds including one that penetrated his stomach.

The killing continued,
and thousands of innocent people were killed.

The death toll on civilians is difficult to
work out, as many bodies were burned and buried in mass graves and dumped in the Yangtze River.

Hospitals became overflowing with patients and could not keep up.

It was said, ‘We
come across corpses every 100 to 200 yards.

The bodies of civilians that I examined had
bullet holes in their backs.

These people had presumably been fleeing and were shot
from behind.

The Japanese march through the city in groups of ten to twenty soldiers and
loot the shops.

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I watched with my own eyes as they looted the café of our German baker
Herr Kiessling.

Hempel’s hotel was broken into as well, as [was] almost every shop on
Chung Shang and Taiping Road.

’ It was said also with regards to looting that,
‘In the first days of the occupation the soldiers [.

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] took a great deal of bedding,
cooking utensils and food from the refugees.

Practically every building in the city was
entered many, many times by these roving gangs of soldiers throughout the first six or seven
weeks of the occupation”.

“There was no burning until the Japanese troops had been in the
city five or six days.

Beginning, I believe, on the 19th or 20th of December, burning was
carried on regularly for six weeks.

’ One third of the city was destroyed by arson,
and newly built government buildings were destroyed also.

Soldier’s stole from the
rich and the poor.

The Japanese also soon after the city fell went after the Chinese
looking for more soldiers, and also executed thousands of young Chinese men.

Lots were taken to the banks of the Yangtze
River, forced to walk in and then were machine gunned to death.

The Straw String Gorge Massacre
occurred on the banks of the river on the 18th December.

Japanese soldiers had tied
the hands of POWS, and then divided them into four columns and then opened fire on them.

The majority of the bodies were thrown in the river.

The also massacred 1300 Chinese
soldiers and civilians at Taiping Gate, and many were blown up with landmines, and then
set on fire with petrol before being finished off with bayonets.

The corpses around the
city regularly were filed 6 feet high, and the sound of machine gun fire was heard all
over.

The streets and the alleys were filled with the dead, and there were also accounts
of cannibalism.

The Japanese did not also respect the safety
zone set up, and there were a number of cases of Japanese soldiers committing further atrocities
in that area.

The cause of the Nanking massacre was not clear, and it was said, ‘There is
no obvious explanation for this grim event.

The Japanese soldiers who had expected was
victory, instead had been fighting hard for months, and had taken higher casualties than
anticipated.

They were bored, angry, frustrated and tired.

The Chinese women were undefended,
their menfolk powerless or absent.

Perhaps all Chinese seemed marked out as victims.

’
When General Matsui later heard of the atrocities inside of the city, it’s said he was shocked
by this.

He allegedly told one of his assistants, ‘ now realize that we have unknowingly
wrought a most grievous effect on this city.

When I think of the feelings and sentiments
of many of my Chinese friends who have fled from Nanjing and of the future of the two
countries, I cannot but feel depressed.

I am very lonely and can never get in a mood
to rejoice about this victory.

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I personally feel sorry for the tragedies to the people,
but the Army must continue unless China repents.

Now, in the winter, the season gives time
to reflect.

I offer my sympathy, with deep emotion, to a million innocent people.

’ As mentioned, it’s believed that the Nanking
Massacre and the atrocities committed caused the deaths of 200,000.

After the surrender
of Japan, the military officers in charge oil the soldiers at Nanking were placed on
trial.

Prince Asaka was granted immunity as a member of the imperial royal family, and
a huge amount of evidence was heard regarding the crimes of the city.

General Matsui was
convicted of his war crimes, as it was said he did nothing to stop the horrors and that,
‘Organized and wholesale murder of male civilians was conducted with the apparent
sanction of the commanders on the pretext that Chinese soldiers had removed their uniforms
and were mingling with the population.

Groups of Chinese civilians were formed, bound with
their hands behind their backs, and marched outside the walls of the city where they were
killed in groups by machine gun fire and with bayonets.

’ Along with 6 other Class A-War criminals,
Matsui was sentenced to death and 18 others were given prison sentences.

Matsui was executed
by hanging in Sugamo Prison at the age of 70.

Hisano Tani was taken to the South Gate
of Nanking, and then executed by a firing squad.

But these reprisals did little for
the people who witnessed or suffered because of the horror of Nanking.

Today its considered
one of the most evil and worst war crimes of the Second World War, and of history.

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