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Throughout history, mans inhumanity to man has had a long and sorry tale. Through all the war atrocities ever committed for any or no reason, few can compare to the intensity and scale of the Nanking Massacre during the Second World War (Chang, Chris. P 55). The most gruesome of the Nanking Massacres experiments were carried out by the Japanese army's Unit 731. What was the purpose of Unit 731? The Japanese government had this group of doctors in various medical fields conduct the experiments on people in an attempt to advance Japans biological and chemical warfare technology.
Through all the horror of the experiments, much was learned that could have help Japan in its chemical and biological warfare development. The Japanese learned that the use of plague bombs worked. The Japanese also made many medical discoveries outside the realm of biological and chemical warfare. In fact, one of the reasons the experiments were even performed was to find vaccines and treatments for diseases that often plagued their own country. (Kristof, Nicholas D. p 4) This did not occur very often compared to the other experiments that were being conducted.
The somewhat fruitful experiments conducted by the Japanese army were certainly not an excuse for the Japanese to kill the immense number of people they did. As a result of the Nanking Massacre, the Japanese army murdered over 260, 000 Chinese civilians. An additional 20, 000 to 80, 000 women were raped and mutilated. (Yue, Dongxiau. P. 1) One can easily see how the experiments conducted by the Japanese army's Unit 731 were very cruel and there should have been some consequence for this great atrocity. It all started out when the government of China decided to move the capital from Peking to Nanking in 1928. The city was beautiful, and had a small population of about 250, 000.
By the mid 1930 s however, the population of Nanking had risen to over one million people. Most of this population cam from refugees trying to flee from Japanese armies which had invaded elsewhere in China since 1931. Finally, on November 11, 1937, the Japanese army decided to take over Nanking. They first secured their control over Shanghai, and started towards Nanking from all directions.
By early December, Japanese troops were in the proximity of Nanking. (The Nanking Massacre, p. 1) On December 9, they Japanese were frustrated with the Chinese not surrendering and decided to launch a massive attack upon the city. By December 13, Japanese forces including army and navy invaded Nanking and took it over that same day. Little to anyones knowledge, the next six weeks would lead to the deaths of over 300, 000 Chinese soldiers and civilians, and to the rape of over 20, 000 women. (War Crimes, p. 1) The first leg of the Japanese invasion took place at the Yangtze River. On December 13, a large number of civilians tried to cross the river in order to escape from the Japanese.
As it turned out, there was no transportation to bring people across the river, and thousands of people were stranded on the shores. As the Japanese arrived at the shore, the started firing at as many people as possible. Some tried to swim across, but they were shot at also. When the smoke cleared the next morning, an astounding number of men, women, and children laid motionless covering just about the whole river. Over 50, 000 innocent people needlessly killed. (The Nanking Massacre, p. 1) This was just the first of the cruel and tragic incidents of the Nanking Massacre. The next incident happened right on the streets of Nanking.
As the Japanese entered the city on December 13, 1937, the streets were covered with over 100, 000 refugees or injured Chinese soldiers. The Japanese started firing aimlessly, killing thousands upon thousands of people. The next day as tanks and heavy artillery entered the city, and people were still being killed, bodies were laid out across the two major streets of Nanking. This complete annihilation in the city streets led the streets to be called the streets of blood. (The Nanking Massacre, p. 2) This was the second incident showing complete cruelty on the part of the Japanese.
The next stage of the attack on Nanking was the mass executions of the captives. Before the Japanese army had even entered the city, Chinese soldiers were being captured. The few soldiers that remained ran into the city and changed into civilian clothing. After the captured entered the city on the December 17, the Japanese started arresting anyone whom they suspected of being a Chinese soldier.
All these young men including the newly arrested were sent outside of the city to be massacred. This crowd was mostly civilian, but was being murdered from several thousands to tens of thousands of people at a time. In most cases, they were killed by machine guns and those who survived the shots were individually bayoneted. In a few cases, the Japanese army poured gasoline on the captives and proceeded to burn them alive.
In some cases, poison gas was used. (The Nanking Massacre, p. 2) All this goes to show the cruelty and sickness of the Japanese army during the Nanking Massacre. Along with the aforementioned incidents came the atrocities with extreme cruelty. These were again performed on civilians. Here, Japanese soldiers invented their own methods of inhumane and barbaric methods of murder. These included shooting, stabbing, cutting open the abdomen, excavating the heart, decapitation, drowning, burning, punching eyes and body with an awl, and in some cases, castration and punching through the vagina. (The Nanking Massacre, p. 2) These atrocious acts were committed on people, namely civilians. This was not only cruel, but also unacceptable under any circumstance in any war.
Another incident that occurred all throughout the Massacre was the rape of over 20, 000 women. Most of these women were brutally killed afterwards. This rape also became utterly disgusting. The soldiers started to rape girls under ten years old and even women over seventy. They raped pregnant women, and even nuns. Some women were even gang raped.
The Japanese in some utterly and unacceptably disgusting cases forced fathers to rape their daughters, and sons to rape their mothers. Those who resisted anything that was asked of them were killed immediately. (The Nanking Massacre, p. 2) All this rampant raping took place in the streets, or religious worshipping places, all in broad daylight. This just added to the despicable crimes that the Japanese were committing in this Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking. While the aforementioned atrocities were occurring all around the cities, some were being committed in the zone that was supposed to protect the Chinese people. Atrocities were being committed in the safety zone. The safety zone consisted of over twenty refugee camps, which were supposed to hold 200 - 12, 000 people.
During the six weeks of the massacre, the Japanese army frequently entered the safety zone to arrest young men for no particular reason. Every time the Japanese entered, several hundred were arrested and murdered on the spot, right in the middle of the safety zone. (The Nanking Massacre, p. 3) This unmistakably shows that the Japanese were committing these crimes for no apparent reason. The last of the visible crimes committed by the Japanese was the looting, burning, and vandalism. The Japanese took just about everything from the Chinese civilians.
This included money, jewelry, coins, animals, food, clothes, antiques, and cigar...
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