AJapanese officer prepares to shoot a Buddhist monk and a local farmer. Photographed during the infamous four-month massacre, Nanjing, December 1937. [2607×1711]
AJapanese officer prepares to shoot a Buddhist monk and a local farmer. Photographed during the infamous four-month massacre, Nanjing, December 1937. [2607×1711]
>“The hundred or more soldiers herded the thirty-eight people to that area and surrounded them. There were two young women in the group, one seventeen and unmarried, and the other pregnant. Both were taken off to separate houses and raped by one “Devil” after another, an ordeal that left them too weak to stand. Having raped the two women, the soldiers turned to arson and mass murder.
The soldiers r**ammed a broom into the vagina of the younger woman** and then stabbed her with a bayonet. T**hey cut open the belly of the pregnant woman and gouged out the fetus.** Three men, unable to bear the sight of the flames consuming their homes, desperately broke through the ring of soldiers and headed off in the direction of the houses. They encountered some other soldiers who were determined not to let them through and forced them into one of the furiously burning houses. Seconds after the soldiers had locked the door from the outside, the roof collapsed in flames on top of the men.
A two-year-old boy was bawling loudly in reaction to the noise and confusion. A soldier **grabbed him from his mother’s arms and threw him into the flames**. They then bayoneted the hysterically sobbing mother and threw her into the creek. The remaining thirty-one people were made to kneel facing the creek. The soldiers **stabbed them from behind with their bayonets, twisting the blades to disembowel them**, and threw them into the water.”
* Honda Katsuichi, on one of the numerous Japanese atrocities committed on the march to Nanjing
Iron_Cavalry on
Traditional historiography dates the Nanjing Massacre across a six-week period and confines it to just the Nanjing walled city. New research shows that Japanese atrocities had been in evidence since November long before the city fell, and continued well into March of 1938.
The most reliable estimates put the death toll between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians and POWs, but it would have been significantly higher had the Japanese implemented their initial plan of *bombarding Nanjing with mustard gas and killing every human being within the city.*
Ultimately, the scenes in Nanjing were far from unique in the broader scope of the Second Sino-Japanese War and were by no means the worst atrocities either. Given this atrocity occurred in the first year, it would only get worse from there.
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>“The hundred or more soldiers herded the thirty-eight people to that area and surrounded them. There were two young women in the group, one seventeen and unmarried, and the other pregnant. Both were taken off to separate houses and raped by one “Devil” after another, an ordeal that left them too weak to stand. Having raped the two women, the soldiers turned to arson and mass murder.
The soldiers r**ammed a broom into the vagina of the younger woman** and then stabbed her with a bayonet. T**hey cut open the belly of the pregnant woman and gouged out the fetus.** Three men, unable to bear the sight of the flames consuming their homes, desperately broke through the ring of soldiers and headed off in the direction of the houses. They encountered some other soldiers who were determined not to let them through and forced them into one of the furiously burning houses. Seconds after the soldiers had locked the door from the outside, the roof collapsed in flames on top of the men.
A two-year-old boy was bawling loudly in reaction to the noise and confusion. A soldier **grabbed him from his mother’s arms and threw him into the flames**. They then bayoneted the hysterically sobbing mother and threw her into the creek. The remaining thirty-one people were made to kneel facing the creek. The soldiers **stabbed them from behind with their bayonets, twisting the blades to disembowel them**, and threw them into the water.”
* Honda Katsuichi, on one of the numerous Japanese atrocities committed on the march to Nanjing
Traditional historiography dates the Nanjing Massacre across a six-week period and confines it to just the Nanjing walled city. New research shows that Japanese atrocities had been in evidence since November long before the city fell, and continued well into March of 1938.
The most reliable estimates put the death toll between 100,000 and 200,000 civilians and POWs, but it would have been significantly higher had the Japanese implemented their initial plan of *bombarding Nanjing with mustard gas and killing every human being within the city.*
Ultimately, the scenes in Nanjing were far from unique in the broader scope of the Second Sino-Japanese War and were by no means the worst atrocities either. Given this atrocity occurred in the first year, it would only get worse from there.
Feeling less bad about those Nukes now