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Nanking : Anatomy of an Atrocity
The December 1937 incident that has come to be known as the Rape of Nanking is, without doubt, a tragedy that will not soon be forgotten. While acknowledging that a tremendous loss of life occurred, this study challenges the current prevailing notion that the incident was a deliberate, planned effort on the part of the Japanese military and analyzes events to produce an accurate estimate of the scale of the atrocities. Drawing on Chinese, Japanese, and English sources, Yamamoto determines that what happened at Nanking were unfortunate atrocities of conventional war with precedents in both Eastern and Western military history. He concludes that post-war events such as the war crimes trials and the impact of the Holocaust in Europe affected public opinion regarding Nanking and led to a dramatic reinterpretation of events.
The Rape of Nanking consisted of two distinct the mass execution of prisoners of war (as well as conscription age men who appeared to be combatants) and the delinquent acts of individual soldiers. The first phase, which occurred immediately after Nanking's fall and which claimed most of the atrocity victims, was the result of the Japanese military's attempt to clear the city of Chinese soldiers thought to be in plain clothes. The second phase, which lasted approximately six weeks, was horrible, but resulted in a much smaller number of fatalities. It was characterized by numerous criminal acts, ranging from rape and murder to arson and theft, committed by unrestrained Japanese soldiers. The root cause for both phases was the Japanese military's bureaucratic inefficiency and command irresponsibility. While both Chinese and American contemporary sources initially attributed the incident to these causes, subsequent Japanese atrocities against both military and civilian Allied personnel during World War II and evidence presented at war crimes trials would come to reshape perceptions of the Nanking events as an Asian counterpart to the Nazi Holocaust.
The Rape of Nanking consisted of two distinct the mass execution of prisoners of war (as well as conscription age men who appeared to be combatants) and the delinquent acts of individual soldiers. The first phase, which occurred immediately after Nanking's fall and which claimed most of the atrocity victims, was the result of the Japanese military's attempt to clear the city of Chinese soldiers thought to be in plain clothes. The second phase, which lasted approximately six weeks, was horrible, but resulted in a much smaller number of fatalities. It was characterized by numerous criminal acts, ranging from rape and murder to arson and theft, committed by unrestrained Japanese soldiers. The root cause for both phases was the Japanese military's bureaucratic inefficiency and command irresponsibility. While both Chinese and American contemporary sources initially attributed the incident to these causes, subsequent Japanese atrocities against both military and civilian Allied personnel during World War II and evidence presented at war crimes trials would come to reshape perceptions of the Nanking events as an Asian counterpart to the Nazi Holocaust.
368 pages, Hardcover
First published August 30, 2000
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 14, 2017
This book is only interesting if you care to know the revisionist arguments of the Rape of Nanking presented by Masahiro. The excuses and bias are very tedious and made this book a tough read for me. Masahiro basically attempts to dispel the eyewitness accounts of both the Chinese and the those from other countries who were living in Nanking during the invasion of the Japanese. Here are three quick examples that frustrated me:
1. Under the section "rape" Masahiro first brings up an alleged rape of one (ONE) Chinese girl at the hands of some of the Chinese soldiers before going on to describe the mass rape by the Japanese. Yes one rape is too many, but in the context of 20,000-80,000 rapes by the Japanese (estimated to be at least 1,000 a night by an American living there at the time) this information is asinine and an obvious attempt to "qualify" what the Japanese did. This is a pattern throughout the book.
2. Masahiro automatically dismisses all of the photographic evidence that we have today claiming that they are wearing "summer clothes" while the invasion was in the winter time. This is ridiculous. You can google search the images right now and see them wearing winter clothing.
3. Masahiro tries his best to claim that the sword "slashing" competition to behead 100 Chinese first between two Japanese officers was a lie even though the Japanese newspapers praised this competition and held the officers as heroes. There is no reason to believe this didn't happen.
After reading this book I am even more convinced that the total number of those murdered is somewhere between 150,000 - 300,000. If you want to learn about the truth and actual history of the Rape of Nanking find another book on this topic. Masahiro even refutes the information contained in the personal letters of the Japanese soldiers.
1. Under the section "rape" Masahiro first brings up an alleged rape of one (ONE) Chinese girl at the hands of some of the Chinese soldiers before going on to describe the mass rape by the Japanese. Yes one rape is too many, but in the context of 20,000-80,000 rapes by the Japanese (estimated to be at least 1,000 a night by an American living there at the time) this information is asinine and an obvious attempt to "qualify" what the Japanese did. This is a pattern throughout the book.
2. Masahiro automatically dismisses all of the photographic evidence that we have today claiming that they are wearing "summer clothes" while the invasion was in the winter time. This is ridiculous. You can google search the images right now and see them wearing winter clothing.
3. Masahiro tries his best to claim that the sword "slashing" competition to behead 100 Chinese first between two Japanese officers was a lie even though the Japanese newspapers praised this competition and held the officers as heroes. There is no reason to believe this didn't happen.
After reading this book I am even more convinced that the total number of those murdered is somewhere between 150,000 - 300,000. If you want to learn about the truth and actual history of the Rape of Nanking find another book on this topic. Masahiro even refutes the information contained in the personal letters of the Japanese soldiers.
May 1, 2013
Biased piece of crap.
January 27, 2016
There are basically three camps of people with different beliefs about what happened in Nanking/Nanjing in 1937 when the Japanese invaded the city.
First, there are the traditionalists. They believe that 200,000 or more Chinese were murdered by the Japanese soldiers who also did massive looting and raping.
Second, there are the revisionists who are roughly in two groups. The extreme revisionists believe that there was no trouble in Nanking at all and only a very small number of civilians were killed.
Finally, there are the centrists who believe that yes, the Japanese Army did bad things in Nanking, but the numbers of murdered are inflated.
None of them agree on the exact number of civilians who were killed, how much looting was done (if any), and how many rapes there were (if any.) Evidence consists of first-hand accounts from both the survivors and Japanese soldiers of the time, along with documents (many burned at the end of WWII), diaries (like that of John Rabe), and photographs and film (which have been attacked as fake.)
Masahiro Yamamoto seems to be a centrist on the issue. He agrees quite strongly that the Japanese soldier did a lot of horrible things in Nanking, but he also believes the number murdered, etc, was not as high as the traditionists believe.
The main problem I found with the book is with his making so many strong statements about how the Japanese soldiers did wrong things and then somehow saying that they cut back the numbers of things they did while in the city.
At present, I do accept the savage and fiendish nature of Japanese atrocities in Nanking as a fact, but I reject the prevailing traditionalist interpretation of the incident because of some of its question able theses as well as negative ramifications that are already obvious today and may become more serious in the future.
He says wartime propaganda affected how the 'incident' was presented.
He then goes into a history of war atrocities and what causes them. That history can come back to bite him, though. He points out a Japanese massacre that took place at Port Arthur in 1894.
The defenseless and unarmed inhabitants were butchered in their houses, and their bodies were unspeakably mutilated. There was an unrestrained reign of murder which continued for three days.
Basically, he's admitting that there was a precedent for what happened at Nanking. It's not the best way to try to present an image of Japanese soldiers. Japanese officials even admitted the massacre.
In talking about Nanking he says the Chinese did not prepare the defense of the city very well, and the Japanese did not prepare their attack on the city very well. Then he gives more evidence about the behavior of the Japanese troops, this time on the way to Nanking.
Private diaries and even official records reveal that many cases of murder or executions also took place even before the Japanese reached Nanking.
He holds that the Japanese were killing a lot of the Chinese troops because of how strongly they fought against the Japanese. He also cites the Chinese people's negative attitude towards the Japanese as another reason there was so much killing.
Why wouldn't the Chinese have a negative attitude toward the Japanese? Japan invaded China, not the other way around. Japan was bombing civilians, not the other way around.
It is undeniable that Japanese soldiers sometimes killed innocent civilians out of excitement or sheer sadistic pleasure. It is equally beyond doubt that summary execution of prisoners frequently took place.
These killings, I'm sure, did not go totally unnoticed by the Chinese. Such things do not encourage positive feelings towards someone.
He talks about the invasion of the city and the Safety Zone that had been created. He says the looting, at least in relation to the taking of food, was due in large part to the lack of proper supplies for the Japanese Army. He say the reason so many Chinese men were killed is because the Chinese soldiers would take off their clothes and put on peasant clothing to try to pass themselves off as civilians.
He says there were two phases to what happened, the first being the killing of POWs, and the second being the looting, murders and rapings.
Very often frenzied Japanese soldiers killed opponents out of sheer fury even when the latter raised their arms.
In other words, they were brutal murderers.
It appeared to be a common practice for Japanese military and naval personnel to behead prisoners for the sake of testing their swordsmanship.
Yep, brutal.
One Japanese division killed between 4,000 and 12,000 prisoners, another 7,000 and another 6,670. He estimates the total number of POWs murdered was around 34,000.
He has a number of tables he uses to determine just how many were killed. He totals the number killed in 'unlawful ways' as between 15 and 50 thousand.
After that he talks about specific crimes committed such a murders, disorder and looting, rape (5,000 maybe, but also maybe several times that), and executions of POWs and former soldiers wearing civilian clothes.
He blames the Chinese somewhat for what happened, pointing out Chiang Kai-shek's decision to make a stand at Nanking, the evacuation of Chinese troops, and the authorities not embracing the concept of the Safety Zone soon enough. He also blames the Chinese soldiers for their practice of discarding uniforms and trying to pass as civilians.
Local requisition of food further accelerated the Japanese troops' degeneration into an army that conducted itself like a premodern horde.
Then chapter 5 is about the aftermath and reaction until 1945 and how the Chinese and the Japanese treated what happened differently. Then there's a chapter on the War Crimes Trials. After that he goes into the history of the controversy and he has a very valuable chart (7.1) which shows the various schools of thought on what happened and how they see six different things that happened.
Then he moves on to the conclusion, appendices, and references.
First, there are the traditionalists. They believe that 200,000 or more Chinese were murdered by the Japanese soldiers who also did massive looting and raping.
Second, there are the revisionists who are roughly in two groups. The extreme revisionists believe that there was no trouble in Nanking at all and only a very small number of civilians were killed.
Finally, there are the centrists who believe that yes, the Japanese Army did bad things in Nanking, but the numbers of murdered are inflated.
None of them agree on the exact number of civilians who were killed, how much looting was done (if any), and how many rapes there were (if any.) Evidence consists of first-hand accounts from both the survivors and Japanese soldiers of the time, along with documents (many burned at the end of WWII), diaries (like that of John Rabe), and photographs and film (which have been attacked as fake.)
Masahiro Yamamoto seems to be a centrist on the issue. He agrees quite strongly that the Japanese soldier did a lot of horrible things in Nanking, but he also believes the number murdered, etc, was not as high as the traditionists believe.
The main problem I found with the book is with his making so many strong statements about how the Japanese soldiers did wrong things and then somehow saying that they cut back the numbers of things they did while in the city.
At present, I do accept the savage and fiendish nature of Japanese atrocities in Nanking as a fact, but I reject the prevailing traditionalist interpretation of the incident because of some of its question able theses as well as negative ramifications that are already obvious today and may become more serious in the future.
He says wartime propaganda affected how the 'incident' was presented.
He then goes into a history of war atrocities and what causes them. That history can come back to bite him, though. He points out a Japanese massacre that took place at Port Arthur in 1894.
The defenseless and unarmed inhabitants were butchered in their houses, and their bodies were unspeakably mutilated. There was an unrestrained reign of murder which continued for three days.
Basically, he's admitting that there was a precedent for what happened at Nanking. It's not the best way to try to present an image of Japanese soldiers. Japanese officials even admitted the massacre.
In talking about Nanking he says the Chinese did not prepare the defense of the city very well, and the Japanese did not prepare their attack on the city very well. Then he gives more evidence about the behavior of the Japanese troops, this time on the way to Nanking.
Private diaries and even official records reveal that many cases of murder or executions also took place even before the Japanese reached Nanking.
He holds that the Japanese were killing a lot of the Chinese troops because of how strongly they fought against the Japanese. He also cites the Chinese people's negative attitude towards the Japanese as another reason there was so much killing.
Why wouldn't the Chinese have a negative attitude toward the Japanese? Japan invaded China, not the other way around. Japan was bombing civilians, not the other way around.
It is undeniable that Japanese soldiers sometimes killed innocent civilians out of excitement or sheer sadistic pleasure. It is equally beyond doubt that summary execution of prisoners frequently took place.
These killings, I'm sure, did not go totally unnoticed by the Chinese. Such things do not encourage positive feelings towards someone.
He talks about the invasion of the city and the Safety Zone that had been created. He says the looting, at least in relation to the taking of food, was due in large part to the lack of proper supplies for the Japanese Army. He say the reason so many Chinese men were killed is because the Chinese soldiers would take off their clothes and put on peasant clothing to try to pass themselves off as civilians.
He says there were two phases to what happened, the first being the killing of POWs, and the second being the looting, murders and rapings.
Very often frenzied Japanese soldiers killed opponents out of sheer fury even when the latter raised their arms.
In other words, they were brutal murderers.
It appeared to be a common practice for Japanese military and naval personnel to behead prisoners for the sake of testing their swordsmanship.
Yep, brutal.
One Japanese division killed between 4,000 and 12,000 prisoners, another 7,000 and another 6,670. He estimates the total number of POWs murdered was around 34,000.
He has a number of tables he uses to determine just how many were killed. He totals the number killed in 'unlawful ways' as between 15 and 50 thousand.
After that he talks about specific crimes committed such a murders, disorder and looting, rape (5,000 maybe, but also maybe several times that), and executions of POWs and former soldiers wearing civilian clothes.
He blames the Chinese somewhat for what happened, pointing out Chiang Kai-shek's decision to make a stand at Nanking, the evacuation of Chinese troops, and the authorities not embracing the concept of the Safety Zone soon enough. He also blames the Chinese soldiers for their practice of discarding uniforms and trying to pass as civilians.
Local requisition of food further accelerated the Japanese troops' degeneration into an army that conducted itself like a premodern horde.
Then chapter 5 is about the aftermath and reaction until 1945 and how the Chinese and the Japanese treated what happened differently. Then there's a chapter on the War Crimes Trials. After that he goes into the history of the controversy and he has a very valuable chart (7.1) which shows the various schools of thought on what happened and how they see six different things that happened.
Then he moves on to the conclusion, appendices, and references.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews