The Rape Of Nanking (35 page)

79.
Never experienced a day as dark:
Sun Zhaiwei, pp. 133–35.

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.

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.