|
|
 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
A correspondent for Asahi Newspaper reported that on December 13 and 14, 1937, the Morozumi Unit (the 65th Infantry Regiment of the Yamada Detachment in the 13th Division) took prisoners of 14,777 Chinese soldiers in the vicinity of the artillery fort of Wulong Mountain and Mufu Mountain that lay at the south bank of the Yangtze River. However, there had been no further follow-up report since then and for decades it was unknown what had become of those prisoners of war. In Japan one theory told that half of them were released, a quarter of them escaped and the rest started a riot and consequently got killed. Another theory told that all of the captives were dragged to the banks of the Yangtze and executed. In the late 1980s, as stated earlier (see the previous story, "Killing Prisoners of War"), a chemical factory worker in Japan, Ono Kenji, investigated the incident by interviewing 200 or so war veterans and gathering 24 wartime diaries and other historical materials.75
Ono's research made it clear that the 15,000 captives and additional 2,000 to 3,000 prisoners taken after the 14th were all massacred by military order. The mass executions of those POWs are possibly the largest in the Nanking Atrocities. They were conducted in two days on the banks of the Yangtze near Mufu Mountain. The dead bodies were quickly covered with gasoline and burnt. And many corpses were later thrown into the Yangtze River. Following are some quotes from the confessions Ono videotaped and the diaries he collected. Upon his and his interviewees' request, they are all assigned pseudonyms. Private Kurosu Tadanobu (Pseudonym): [Interview on the videotape] I joined the Army two days after I got the draft paper. I was determined to fight, but couldn't possibly tell my wife that I would most likely die. So I simply told her to keep our house intact. Those drafted for the first time were delighted to serve their country and the Emperor, but I knew that going to the front meant facing death. When I got on the train, I kept thinking that it was the last time to see my brothers and others. I couldn't help crying.76
[Interview on the videotape] I heard they [the captives] were conscripted soldiers. I saw various prisoners, from younger ones to really old ones.... There were 20,000 of them. We took them out to the bank of the Yangtze River and machine-gunned them. It took us two nights to finish it off. We threw the bodies into the river later on, but the stream was so slow that many of them didn't float right away.
[His diary on Dec. 16] The prisoners of war amounted to 17,025. In the evening received military order, took out one third of them to the banks and the 1st Battalion shot them.81
Second Lieutenant Takayanagi Shinichi (Pseudonym): [Interview on the videotape] We tied them [the captives] up and began dragging them [to the execution site] in the morning.... It took all day to get them there. Then at night we machine-gunned them all.... There was corpse after corpse. Had it been in the daylight, I don't think I could have faced the scene straight. I went back there to dispose of the bodies the next day. They were all charred and smelled awful. Even now I remember the smell.
[Interview on the videotape] I had experienced so much combat before Nanking. Compared with those, the Battle of Nanking was nothing. The Chinese soldiers were gone out of sight pretty quickly.... They [prisoners of war] were not all soldiers. I don't remember clearly but I might have seen a few women, even.... Of course it was an order from above [to execute all the captives]. It wasn't like five or ten captives.... I was not in a position to know the whole picture, but it was an official order.84
[Interview on the videotape] I made the pedestals to mount the machine guns. It was about one meter [3 feet 4 inches] high.... I did it [killed the prisoners] on the second day at the foot of Mufu Mountain.... I fired some 200 bullets in about ten minutes and that was it. I was allowed to go back and was lucky enough not to be assigned to dispose of the dead bodies.85
[Interview on the videotape] Many groups of 100 or 200 Chinese soldiers came from here and there to surrender while hanging out a white cloth or something of that kind. I didn't count them by myself, but I heard we had about 18,000 to 20,000.... I am sure that other units, like the 6th Division, have done the same.... I don't think it could be 300,000. I guess it was probably about 80,000 to 100,000.
[Interview on the videotape] There were many prisoners of war who survived the machine-gunning. So we bayoneted those who were moving.... Some screamed like mad men when I stabbed them. It was so loud. Their voices haunted me for a week since then.... I heard that there were a few female prisoners of war. But I don't think there was any elderly or children. They were all soldiers.... We just did what our superiors told us to do.... We burnt the bodies and they stank so badly.... I didn't think much about it [the cruelty] at the time. I just thought war was like that.87
"I think those former soldiers used to have racial hatred toward Chinese. Many war veterans I interviewed still unconsciously use the word, Chankoro [derogatory term in Japanese literally meaning, "Chinese brat"], or something of that kind. But at the same time, many of those who committed the massacre have been tormented by their consciences for more than 50 years...." "I became really close to Mr. Kurosu (pseudonym) through my research. I visited his house quite often and talked a lot. He seemed deeply repentant.... I was really surprised and couldn't say a word when he gave me his wartime diary, which, he'd been telling me, he ditched before he landed in Japan. It was one and a half years after we met and made friends! Then I realized how hard it was for him to come to terms with the past. If you read his diary, you know it is something that you can't easily talk about...." "These [former soldiers'] diaries are candidly describing how normal, average persons had developed their animosity through combat and how they became mentally anesthetized through slaughtering captives and looting houses on the way to Nanjing. Once those cruel acts became their daily lives, they no longer had inhibitions...."
"After all, they were following orders from the Army. Most of those who massacred Chinese were noncommissioned officers and common soldiers. For them the orders were absolute.... Of course I feel compassion for the victims. But now I know the perpetrators were also psychologically scarred...." "A veteran told me that he couldn't forget the face of one prisoner he killed in Shanghai. He executed thousands of POWs on the banks of the Yangtze River later on, but those victims were already faceless for him. But the one he killed in Shanghai for the first time, he still dreams of the face once in a while. I think it really tells something about the psychological state of the soldiers in the Yamada Detachment in Nanjing."
© 2000. All Rights Reserved. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
