What Happened in Nanking, December 1937

Quite possibly, the worst holocaust in modern history took place behind an official news silence in China’s captured capital of Nanking between Dec. 10 and 18. Against expert advice, Genaralissimo Chiang Kai-Shek had left some of his best troops to make a last-ditch stand inside the city. They included not only his 88th “Model” division but also a German-trained brigade and the excellent southern troops of Kwangsi Province’s General Pai Chung-hsi. In effect, their intent was to commit suicide at the highest possible cost to Japanese lives. Some of them, when the walls were breached, stripped to their underwear and ran around looking for civilian clothes. But some fought for a full week in the completely invested city. In the “indescribable confusion” Japanese shot down everyone seen running or caught in a dark alley. Suspected soldiers were executed in droves. In one building in the “safety zone,” 400 men were tied together and marched off to be shot. A few uninvestigated cases of rape were reported.
But two amazing facts emerged: 1) Some 140,000 Chinese soldiers fought their way clear of the city and set up new lines to the northwest. 2) The Japanese Army in Nanking permitted organized looting by its men, presumably because its supplies are getting low.
Despite the fact that fire gutted Nanking’s slums, most of the fine Nationalist Government buildings as well as the tomb of Sun Yat-sen outside the city seemed to have survived in fairly good shape.

THE CONQUERORS' BRUTALITY

From Our Special Correspondent
SHANGHAI, DEC. 17 

Foreign eye-witnesses whom I interviewed while passing through Nanking, described to me the looting and fall of the city. 

On Friday, December 10, the Japanese aircraft were engaged in bombing and machine-gunning the Chinese troops moving through the city for the defence of the walls where the heaviest fighting was proceeding. During the night the shelling was continuous and the city shook with the explosions of many heavy projectiles. The Japanese appeared to be trying to break through but without success. The shelling was most intense on the Saturday, when about 30 civilians were killed by 10 shells which fell in the safety zone, into which refugees were pouring from all directions. That day the Chinese troops began looting. 
Saturday night was comparatively quiet, but on Sunday afternoon the bombardment became tremendous. Chinese artillery and other positions were shelled, captive balloons spotting for the Japanese gunners. Only a few shells, however, landed in the safety zone.

PANIC SETS IN 
　Sunday evening saw the first signs of the Chinese collapse, when a whole division began streaming towards the River Gate. They were fired on and stopped, and later it was learned that a general retreat had been ordered for 9 o'clock. The movement towards the gate leading to the Hsiakwan river-front, the only way of escape, was orderly at first, but it soon became clear that the Chinese defence of the southern gates had broken down, and that the Japanese were making their way northward through the city. The noise reached its climax in the early evening, by which time the southernmost part of the city was burning furiously. The retreat became a rout, the Chinese troops casting away their arms in panic when they found little or no transport to get them across the river. Many frantically re-entered the city and some burst into the safety zone. 
While retreating the Chinese fired the Ministry of Communications, the most ornate building in Nanking, built at a cost of ￡250,000, and as it was filled with munitions the explosions caused a tremendous racket. The resulting panic caused a traffic jam along the line of retirement and added to the confusion arising from the discovery that the supply of boats was exhausted. The Ministry was gutted, but it was the only important Government building destroyed: all the Embassies were respected.

RELENTLESS SEARCH 
　On Monday morning the Japanese were still gradually moving northward, meeting with no resistance, and a systematic mopping-up had already begun. The foreigners thought that all trouble was over, though groups of Chinese soldiers were still wandering about. Those coming to the safety zone were told to lay down their arms, and thousands discarded their arms and uniforms, which made a huge pile in front of the blazing Ministry of Communications. The huge crowds of Chinese and the handful of foreigners hoped that the arrival of the Japanese would end the confusion, but when the invaders began their intensive mopping-up operations, that hope was dashed. The Chinese fled in terror, and the horror of the scene was accentuated by the wounded who were crawling around imploring aid.
That night the Japanese opened the Chungshan Gate and made a triumphal entry, in which, owing to the dearth of transport, they used oxen, donkeys, wheel-barrows, and even broken down carriages. Later they began working into the safety zone, and anyone caught out of doors without good reason was promptly shot. On Tuesday the Japanese began a systematic searching out of anyone even remotely connected with the Chinese Army. They took suspects from the refugee camps and trapped many soldiers wandering in the streets. Soldiers who would willingly have surrendered were shot down as an example. 

NURSES ROBBED 
　No mercy was shown. The hopes of the populace gave place to fear and a reign of terror followed. Japanese searched houses and began a wholesale looting of property along the main streets, breaking into shops and taking watches, clocks, silverware, and everything portable, and impressing coolies to carry their loot. They visited the American University Hospital and robbed the nurses of their wrist watches, fountain pens, flashlights, ransacked the buildings and property, and took the motor-cars, ripping the American flags off them. Foreign houses were invaded and a couple of German shops looted. Any sympathy shown by foreigners towards the disarmed Chinese soldiers merely served to incense the Japanese. 
Young men who might have been soldiers and many police constables were assembled　in groups for execution, as was proved by the bodies afterwards seen lying in piles. The streets were littered with bodies, including those of harmless old men, but it is a fact that the bodies of no women were seen. At the Hsiakwan gate leading to the river the bodies of men and horses made a frightful mass 4ft. deep, over which cars and lorries were passing in and out of the gate. 
Mopping-up operations continued throughout Wednesday, and when I and the other Panay survivors passed through the city was still in a state of subdued terror. 
The International Safety Zone Committee deserve the highest credit. They kept their nerve through all the shelling, giving no thought to their own safety, and did everything to　help by negotiating in the hope of securing a truce. After the collapse of the Chinese Administration the Committee was the only stabilizing factor in Nanking. 　But for them the destruction and executions would have been much greater.

SHANGHAI, Dec. 17.-

General Yang-hu, garrison commander of the Shanghai and Woosung area until the withdrawal of the Chinese forces, was executed at Hankow recently. He was shot, on the orders of General Chiang Kai-shek, on charges of corruption and failure to carry out military orders, according to Chinese Press reports. He was a veteran member of the Kuomintang.-Reuter. 

NANKING'S FAMOUS TOMBS UNDAMAGED 

FROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT
SHANGHAI, DEC. 17 

It is reported from Nanking that the Ming tombs, the Sun Yat-sen mausoleum, and other historic buildings are fully preserved, as both gunners and bombers were strictly enjoined to avoid damaging them in the recent fighting.

Literally pounding at the gates of Nanking, the Japanese artillery fires at almost point-blank range to batter down the South gate, barricaded by the retreating Chinese forces. The relentless fire and air raids shortly created panic among the defenders and, in their attempts to flee through the one remaining gate, thousands were reported crushed to death.

reported on Jan 13, 1938