The Japanese occupation forces in Nanjing, China began registering women. Note: We hope that visitor conversations at WW2DB will be constructive and thought-provoking. 8 which directed it to attack and occupy Nanking. Prince Naruhiko ordered the Japanese Army Air Service to begin a renewed air offensive against the Chinese capital of Nanjing. Yijiang Gate was the only open gate and, therefore, the only possible escape route. The rape and murder that would soon envelop Nanking started before the Japanese Army ever reached the city walls. Unfortunately the wind changed on 10 August, making it impossible to sail upstream, so Zheng and his men had to haul the ships along from the riverbank. Vessels operated by the 11th Task Force of the Japanese 3rd Fleet fired on Chinese refugees attempting to cross the Yangtze River. Among the Chinese leadership, two sides existed regarding the defense of Nanjing.
Corrections? No Chinese envoy appeared, and at 1300 hours, General Iwane Matsui and Lieutenant General Prince Asaka (Yasuhiko) concluded that the Chinese were not interested in negotiating, and gave the order for attack. Chiang's strategy was to follow the suggestion of his German advisers to draw the Japanese army deep into China utilizing China's vast territory as a defensive strength. The first account indicates that Chiang had to plead with Tang several times in order to get him to agree to accept the assignment. We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night, and many by day.... Women are being carried off every morning, afternoon and evening. On December 2, Emperor Showa nominated one of his uncles, Prince Asaka, as commander of the invasion. Please consider supporting us on Patreon. This three day delay was enough to cause a breakdown in Chinese command as the units were devastated by continued fighting, and this directly caused the failure to coordinate the defense around the Chinese Hindenburg Lines guarding Nanking. Li also proposed declaring Nanking an "open city" to avoid unnecessary destruction. That is what I must do.":[15]. Directed by army officers, a thousand Chinese civilians reinforced existing gun emplacements, concrete pillboxes and dugouts with a trench network extending thirty miles from the city in seven semicircular rings ending at the Yangtze River. One consequence of these "scorched-earth" strategy operations was that many citizens were hindered in their efforts to flee the city due to the destruction of the transportation infrastructure. While the western powers were in session to mediate the situation, the Chinese troops were making their final stand in Shanghai and had all hopes for a western intervention that would save China from collapse. On November 11, 1937, the Chinese forces began to retreat, but in such a disorganized manner that they failed to secure their carefully constructed series of defences around Wuxi. As reported by the International Committee later, at 1600 hours on this date, "at No. Japanese 9th Division killed about 6,500 Chinese people, both military in civilian, in Nanjing, China during two days of mop up operations. Concrete pill boxes, tankettes, and the usage of fire inflicted large numbers of casualties among the Japanese, but greater firepower eventually overwhelmed the Chinese. Zheng Chenggong, better known as Coxinga, was the most loyal supporter of the final claimant to the throne of the Ming dynasty after it had been replaced by the Manchu Qing dynasty. As reported by the International Committee later, Japanese troops entered civilian homes in Nanjing and raped or took away women. The Chinese armies surrounding Shanghai outnumbered the Japanese forces stationed there by more than 10 to 1. George Fitch, an American missionary, departed Nanjing, China for Shanghai with 16-millimeter film containing scenes of Japanese atrocities secretly sewn into the lining of his jacket. As the Chinese government left, the troops continued to destroy buildings and infrastructure within the city just as they had done outside the city walls days earlier; in total, this scorched earth policy caused between US$20,000,000 to US$30,000,000 worth of damage during the period between the fall of Shanghai and the start of the Battle of Nanjing. All comment submissions will become the property of WW2DB.
The muzzles of machine guns protruding from loopholes on top of the walls were aimed directly at Japanese positions. On the afternoon of December 13, the Shanghai Expeditionary Force Headquarters at Tangshuizhen was ambushed by Chinese stragglers. The Japanese finally broke through the Chinese lines by making an amphibious assault at Hangzhou Bay, south of Shanghai, encircling the Chinese army from the rear.
Rabe was unexpected threatened by the Gestapo several days later, warning him to remain quiet on this topic. The Battle of Nanking was an engagement fought in early December 1937 between the National Revolutionary Army of China and the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War for control of the city of Nanking, the capital of the Republic of China. The Xicheng defensive line between Shanghai and Nanjing in China was overrun by Japanese troops. Thousands of Chinese troops crowded inside the Yijiang Gate, and it was not before long that many began to force their way through, and the 36th Division troops opened fire on those they considered deserters. Of the 100,000 defenders of the capital, and thousands more Chinese troops fleeing back to the capital from the battles in the areas around Nanking, only two regiments managed to successfully retreat according to the original plan. In a memorandum for the palace rolls, Hirohito had singled Prince Asaka (Yasuhiko) out for censure as the one imperial kinsman whose attitude was "not good." They both survived intact. In front of the wall was the outer moat, approximately 135 meters wide. And then there were the over 20,000 cases of rapes, victims of which crime ranged from girls under 10 years of age to over 80 years of age; many of those who were raped, itself a grotesque crime, were further tortured by the Japanese troops by impalement of their vaginas with everything from beer bottles to bayonets. The officials of the Nanjing Branch of the Palace Museum of China ordered the treasures stored at the Taoist monastery Chaotian Gong, which had arrived from Beiping and Shanghai in Dec 1936, to be moved westward ahead of the Japanese attack. The Chinese army was fighting with the last of its strength and the frontline was on the verge of collapse. Losses: Zheng, unknown; Manchu, 4,500 bodies in the river alone. After his defeat, Zheng was concerned with his own position rather than restoring the fortunes of the Ming dynasty. ", Men of the Japanese 13th Division, having executed tends of thousands of refugees and prisoners of war in Nanjing, China by machine gun, bayonet, and fire since 16 Dec 1937, began to burn the remains; the ashes were dumped into the Yangtze River. The search for a willing volunteer was problematic because most of the senior officers were aware of the futility of the effort and the public blame that would be placed upon anyone who attempted to defend Nanking and failed. It was not until November 8 that the Chinese central command issued a general retreat to withdraw from the entire Shanghai front. ww2dbaseWhen the Japanese troops arrived at the outskirts of Nanjing in early Dec, Tang realized that his defenses, untrained and demoralized to the point that many were simply abandoning their posts, had no chance of winning. In 1937, however, the Chinese communists and nationalists agreed to form a united front. Tang pressed both soldiers and civilians into service in his frantic rush to bolster the city's fortifications. Some soldiers donned civilian clothes, sometimes by robbing civilians of their garments, and others ran away in their underwear. In 1934, with German assistance, the construction of the so-called "Chinese Hindenburg Line" began, with a series of fortifications to facilitate defence in depth. In October, the Shanghai Expeditionary Force (SEF) was reinforced by the Japanese 10th Army commanded by Lieutenant General Heisuke Yanagawa. Finally, at 6:00 a.m. on December 13, the Sabae Regiment occupied Guanghua Gate.
Troops of the Japanese 114th Division captured over 1,000 Chinese during its mop up operations, most of whom would be executed within days. In attendance were Li Zongren, Bai Chongxi, He Yingqin, Xu Yongchang, Tang Shengzhi and Alexander von Falkenhausen. Southern Nanking, the most lively and densely populated area of the city, suffered from the worst bombings. According to the Nanking Defense Corps Battle Report, the responsibility of the 36th Division was to use force to prevent units from retreating. But the gate was so solidly built that they could make little headway. The attack on Guanghua Gate commenced at 2:00 p.m., after the deadline for surrender had passed. After the government officials departed, the civilians began fleeing the city en masse, creating mass panic. Barricades of sandbags covered with barbed-wire entanglements had already been erected on the periphery of the gate. Unlike the many other cities that were devastated during WW2, which were largely damaged by either aerial bombing or by fierce fighting, only about 1% to 2% of the damage done at Nanjing were caused by military actions. The gates were the first obstacles, and they were formidable ones. In a press release to foreign reporters, he announced the city would not surrender and would fight to the death. Even worse were those who bled to death by after being nailed to telephone poles or doors, castrated, delimbed, or disemboweled. 20th Company of the Japanese 16th Division massacred more than 7,000 Chinese east of Zijin Mountain. Get exclusive access to content from our 1768 First Edition with your subscription. ", Japanese troops executed over 300 Chinese people, military and civilian, on a road outside of Nanjing, China by machine gun. eval(ez_write_tag([[300,250],'ww2db_com-medrectangle-4','ezslot_1',114,'0','0'])); ww2dbaseAt 1327 hours on 12 Dec, American gunboat USS Panay and three tankers were in the Yangtze River, upstream from Nanjing. The Wufu defensive line had collapsed by 19 Nov, and the Xicheng Line was overrun on 26 Nov. By the time the official order to take Nanking arrived from Imperial Headquarters on December 1, both the 10th Army and the Shanghai Expeditionary Force had been marching westward for almost 3 weeks. Rape! Guanghua Gate was actually a double gate, with outer and inner archways, and iron doors. Leaving General Tang Shengzhi in charge of the city for the Battle of Nanking, many of Chiang's advisors left Nanking on December 1, and the president himself left on December 7. Higashinakano Shudo, Kobayashi Susumu & Fukunaga Shainjiro (2005). They burned down structures within the grounds of the Zhongshan Mausoleum, as well as the stately Ministry of Communications building. https://www.britannica.com/event/Battle-of-Nanjing, World War II Database - Battle of Nanjing and the Rape of Nanjing. Targets within and outside of the city walls—such as military barracks, private homes, the aforementioned Chinese Ministry of Communication, forests and even entire villages—were burnt to cinders, at an estimated value of 20 to 30 million (1937) US dollars.[11][12][13].
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