What was the 1937 Rape of Nanking and other atrocities in China?

Question

World History

Answer 1

also called Nanjing massacre. so horrific and so much to tell
check out the site for the memorial
http://www.nj1937.org/english/default.asp
its really sad that we know so much now about what happened in Europe but the events in Asia during WWII seem to have been swept under the rug.

Answer 2

The Emperor of Japan decided Japan should be a world power and have colonies like the US and Europe. Asia should be ruled by Asians and Japanese specifically. Japan invaded Manchuria in China for its rich natural resources. Nanking was part of this offensive.

The Japanese brutally murdered approximately 300,000 Chinese, men, women, and children in Nanking. They were beheaded, stabbed, dismembered. The women were raped. The Japanese had a penchant for taking pictures, then as now and many pictures remain of the atrocities committed by these Samurai warriors.

The Japanese continued to commit many atrocities throughout Asia and the Pacific Islands until they were stopped by overwhelming force from the United States.

Answer 3

After taking the city of Nanking, the Japanese Imperial Army was allowed to plunder the city. All Chinese military age males were subject to summary execution. Any woman was subject to rape and murder. The situation was widely publicized and created horror in the free world, but the Japanese did not care. Despite calling their imperialist power grab the Greater East Asia Co Prosperity Sphere, it really was about taking whatever they could for Japan. When the United States refused to ship steel and other raw materials to Japan in protest of the Japanese imperialist war against China and her people, the Japanese put the attack on Pearl Harbor into play.

Answer 4

The Rape of Nanking, China took place within a few months of 1937 where Japanese soldiers slaughtered between 260,000 and 350,000 Chinese civilians.

Japanese soldiers used Chinese men for bayonet practice, and around 20,000 to 80,000 women were raped. Chinese men were also decapitated in contests. Not only were the women raped, many soldiers disemboweled them, cut off their breast, and hammered nails through them, pinning them to walls alive. Family members were also forced to rape each other.

More civilians died in this war than that caused by the atom bombing of Japan. And it also outnumbered the civilian deaths during WWII in most European countries.

Answer 5

4 excellent answers, especially the part the Asian events get by passed and forgotten......the Nanking story isn't even told in Japanese schools....

make no mistake...the Japanese of 1935-1945 were as brutal and racist as any force in history........their treatment of American and British And Filipino and Australian POWs make the German POW camps look like Club Med

and what they did to fellow Asians in the occupied countries would make a Nazi puke....

it's a tribute to the Constitution Douglas MacArthur wrote, and the intelligence and adaptability of the Japanese people, that a generation later they are our firm allies and a prosperous democracy......