Rape of Nanking
Facts
Chinese and Japanese
Description of the event
1.The Japanese began their attack on that city early in December, forcing its surrender on December 13.
2.The population of Nanking was subjected to an uncontrolled butchery that came to be known as "the Rape of Nanking."
3.As the Japanese army poured into the city, fleeing residents were shot or bayoneted.
4.Thousand of suspected members of the Chinese Army who had shed their uniforms for civilian clothing, were apprehended, their hands tied behind their backs and led en mass to killing fields where they were shot, beheaded, used for bayonet practice or killed in some other gruesome manner before being dumped into mass graves.
5.Thousands of others were buried while still alive.
6.Rape was rampant as thousands of women were repeatedly forced into brutal sex and often murdered once the lust of their attackers had been satisfied.
7.The carnage lasted for six weeks and took an estimated 40,000 lives.
8.Since most Japanese military records on the killings were kept secret or destroyed shortly after the surrender of Japan in 1945, historians have not been able to accurately estimate the death toll of the massacre.
9. Denial of the massacre and revisionist accounts of the killings have become a staple of Japanese nationalism.
10.In Japan, public opinion of the massacres varies, but few deny outright that the conflict occurred.