13th December 1937: The Nanking Massacre begins during the Second Sino-Japanese War

Troops from the Imperial Japanese Army arrived at Nanking, which at the time was the capital of the Republic of China, on 9 December. Despite attempts by a group of foreigners in the city to negotiate a peaceful handover, Chinese Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek ordered that the city be defended ‘to the last man’. Meanwhile, Japanese troops were ordered to ‘kill all captives’.

The Chinese defence collapsed on 12 December, and the victorious Japanese army entered the following day. According to eyewitness accounts, the next six weeks saw them engage in numerous war crimes including rape, murder, theft and arson. Captured Chinese troops were the victims of extrajudicial killings by machine gun or by being used for live bayonet practice. Meanwhile children, the elderly, and approximately 20,000 other women of the city were raped. Many were killed immediately afterwards.

Japanese General Iwane Matsui expressed his regret at the behaviour of his troops just a few days after taking control of the Nanking, but the atrocities didn’t end until the start of February 1938. At the end of the Second World War, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East convicted only two people for their role in the massacre.

While both China and Japan have both publicly acknowledged and expressed regret over a number of atrocities committed during the war, the Nanking Massacre remains a highly contentious historical event. Although accurate figures are impossible to establish, most scholars estimate that between 40,000 to over 300,000 people died as a result.

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