The Rape of Nanking: The History and Legacy of the Notorious Massacre during the Second Sino-Japanese War

by Charles River Editors

*Includes pictures*Includes accounts of the massacre by civilians and Japanese soldiers*Includes online resources and a bibliography for further reading“When you're talking about the Japanese military, thievery and rape just come with the territory. We stabbed them with bayonets, cut open pregnant women and took out the child. I killed five or six of them myself. I used to do some pretty brutal things.” - Kodaira Yoshio, former Japanese soldier (Honda, 2015, 122).“This is the shortest day of the year, but it still contains twenty-four hours of this hell on earth.” - Dr. Robert Wilson, diary entry in Nanking, December 21st, 1937 (Brook, 1999, 219).Three days of plundering traditionally befell cities taken by storm, a fate usually avoided by those surrendering before the first attacking soldier penetrated beyond the outer walls. In Europe and areas influenced by Enlightenment thinkers, this practice faded rapidly after the Napoleonic Wars. In 1937, however, as the Imperial Army of Japan invaded China, this custom returned in a horrifying new form – the Rape of Nanking or the Nanking Massacre, a bloodbath lasting more than six weeks and possibly claiming more than a quarter of a million lives. Even the Japanese participating in the Nanking Massacre provided no rationale for their actions. They made no effort to explain it as a measure to terrorize other Chinese cities into surrender, or even to extract the location of hidden valuables. Instead, the Rape appears on the page of history as a psychopathic orgy of sadism for sadism's sake. Insatiably driven by hatred and, apparently, an unabashed relish for cruelty, the Japanese soldiery abandoned any semblance of restraint. Women of every age, from small children to ancient elders, suffered innumerable rapes, in many cases dying from the mass raping alone. Those who did not die from sexual assault suffered death in other forms – shot, decapitated, or tortured to death once the soldiers found themselves sexually exhausted. Other women suffered fatal sexual torture involving the introduction of sharp foreign objects into their vagina or the placement of firecrackers or live grenades inside. At least one soldier, Kodaira Yoshio, so enjoyed torturing women to death that he returned to Japan as a serial killer, treating his Japanese victims in the same fashion as Chinese women until caught and executed. The Japanese hacked men to death, shot them, used them for live bayonet practice, drowned them, locked them in sheds and burned them, or buried them alive. Even farm animals suffered mutilation, shooting, or burning while locked in their barns. Unburied corpses lay in heaps everywhere, while the Japanese continued to harry and slaughter the survivors for week after week. A choking stench hung over the city in the summer heat. A number of foreign people on the scene attempted to save some of the Chinese from the massacre and, in some cases, succeeded. Their neutral status gave them the ability to move around Nanking without – in most cases – suffering assault or murder by the swarms of Japanese troops glutting themselves endlessly on human pain and death. They also photographed the nearly inconceivable images of bloodshed, creating a stark, permanent record of one of World War II's leading atrocities. Even Third Reich personnel in the city interceded in a sometimes futile effort to rescue victims from their tormentors. At the end of the city's long harrowing, the world knew clearly, if it did not before, that the Japanese of Tojo and Hirohito showed a very different spirit than the exquisitely genteel and chivalric men of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Audiobook

58 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 25, 2016

About the author

Charles River Editors is an independent publisher of thousands of ebooks on Kindle, Nook, Kobo, and Apple iBookstore & provider of original content for third parties.

Reviews

[Jahnie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not too sure how to properly rate this book, but it sure made me furious. A depressing and rage-fueling read. I think I will keep carrying that weight for a long time.

[sammac · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an abridged version of the tragedy that was Nanking during the early segments of WWII. Even so, the mass atrocities and degradation is hard to comprehend because it occurred on such a large scale.

It is a quick but worthwhile read to better understand the horrors that took place on a subject that is little discussed in history today.

[Dawn O Watson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Cold Account

While this work is filled with facts the reader becomes desensitized because of the lack of first-person dialog. Surely at the time of its writing there were interviews of the victims & their tormentors. It would have humanized the historical facts.

[Trace Garren · Rating 3 out of 5]

A short and dry reading, it’s a sit down and read it all at once type of book. While lacking any first person narrative and dry in writing style, this book is precise, rife with well researched detail, and dense with facts.

Reading this will take you only about an hour, however it will be a rage inducing hour. Not at the authors, who did their job well enough (all be it very plain), but simply at the evil committed by the Japanese during WW2. The fact that so many of these monsters were able to commit their atrocities and never face any form of secular justice makes me rejoice that “Vengeance is mine, thus say the Lord”, and that Hell awaited these monsters

[jose pinero · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is shocking and depressing, have it four only because I'm unsure it's accuracy

Shocking and depressing, truly denotes man's inhumanity to man. We are all the same none is superior to another, therefore equal

[H · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very abridged version and yet cant read widout shivering in fear & disgust.... cant believe humans did this other humans. Yuck..

[Chad Johns · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would highly recommend reading the more famous Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. Much more comprehensive and complete.

[Perry Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

Terrifies me to the core

A reminder that the evil men do to each other is only a very small percentage of what some are capable of doing.

[Roland M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrendous, inhumain. How can people be driven o such insanity. 🤮

[Caleb D · Rating 4 out of 5]

This short history book shows the one of the horrors of the Japanese invasion of China and how this atrocity was allowed to happen. It is short but thorough. Definitely not for the faint of heart.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Important part of history. This is a short summary, should still read the full story.

[Matthew David · Rating 4 out of 5]

I fucking hate humans

[Naomi's Novels]

The pieces of history are starting to come together for me, now. However, the puzzle that is human nature continues to confound me.

[Michael Gegen · Rating 4 out of 5]

insane

[Wayne maushart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short but well presented

I found good info with little wasted wording. The story is presented by giving fairly in depth info without boring nonessential embellishments

[Benjamin Barnes · Rating 4 out of 5]

I find this terrible

This is a very dark period in human history. I wish they would teach this in every school. So it is not repeated.