The Rape of Nanking. No word exists, not even rape, that is a proper justification for the atrocities that occurred during the occupation of China’s capital by Japanese forces during World War II. Over the 6 concentrated weeks of killing in Nanking, the noncombatant death toll has been placed at times higher than 350,000 by some with an estimated 20,000-80,000 women raped. On the soldiers’ way to Nanking, no town in their way was spared a similar fate. The horrible murders had innumerable variations in the form and scope of the killing.
The Chinese district of Cholon suffered with hundreds of civilians killed in the American counter attacks.” (First Battle) “On March 16, 1968, U.S. Army forces conducted a mass murder of hundreds of unarmed citizens in South Vietnam. Lieutenant William Calley Jr., a platoon leader in Charlie Company of Task Force Barker, was sentenced to life imprisonment for murdering 22 villagers. His company herded hundreds of unarmed villagers into a ditch and shot them to death.” (Miller 65) When the My Lai Massacre became public knowledge, it reduced U.S. support at home for the Vietnam War and created an anti-war movement. The anti-war movement became
Describe the Bangka Island Massacre. What does this event suggest about the actions and attitudes of the Japanese? The Bangka Island massacre was committed on 16 February 1942, when Imperial Japanese soldiers machine gunned 22 Australian Army nurses (only one survived) and some 60 Australian and British soldiers and crew members from two sunken ships (only two survived). This suggests that the Japanese are ruthless and remorseless as they seem to show no mercy towards the murders of these innocent civillians. 5. Who was Vivian Bullwinkel?
In the book “The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II” Iris Chang cements her feelings of utter disgust toward the people who committed the atrocities that occurred in the City of Nanking in China during the late 1930’s. Chang begins the book with a long introduction and forward showing the many facts that she later uses to show that the Japanese soldiers were “turned into murdering demons” by the Japanese command at the time (58). Chang couples these facts with many varying first-hand accounts of the actions that took place in and around the city of Nanking. Alongside the accounts she also uses a timeline which described how the events unfolded in order to show how the Japanese cruelty grew as the occupation of the city dragged on. Chang even included accounts from members of her own family to show how wide spread the effects of the holocaust were.
One of the examples for this is the rape of Nanjing. In 1931, the Japanese army attacked china and the Japanese army entered the city without any resistance. In six week, up to 300 000 civilians were killed where many of them were shot or stabbed to death. Some women were forced into prostitution. Because of all these happening, in 1931, when china ask for help but Canada didn’t help.
The worst example of the hostility towards the Chinese was in Los Angeles in 1871, were nineteen Chinese men were hung and shot in the evening, along with the theft of over $40,000 worth of goods (Pacific). Many of the Chinese living in Los Angeles at the time were in shock. Though the violence towards the Chinese started in the south, were it gained many of its supporters, the people in the south asserted there, “superiority” of their race and the idea of servitude to all inferior races. To work was all well accepted in the south, but to work along a “pig-tail” was a shame to the white “superior” race. Along with their method to take matters into their own hands, the procedure was just to sack and burn the Chinese laundries and other commercial establishments operated by the Chinese.
During WWII, Japan invaded China after a small, nearly ineffective bomb hit Japan in hopes to destroy their Manchuria Railway that China was blamed for. With their invasion as a response to the bomb, Japan sent troops all around China, with Nanking being one of the many captured. The rape of Nanking was a horrific event. Japanese soldiers tortured and terrorized innocent women and children to their deaths. They were passed around from soldier to soldier, beaten, humiliated, and made a mockery while the soldiers had no mercy for their souls.
It happened on an 8 square mile island that took the mane, Iwo Jima (Battle of Iwo Jima, par 1). American troops were told that their goal was to take the airfield of Iwo Jima for the future bombing of Tokyo. The Japanese were assigned to kill ten American soldiers before they had the right to die. The battle lasted from February 19, 1945 to March 26, 1945, which was a little over a month,. In thirty-six days there were nearly twenty-six thousand US casualties, almost seven thousand American troops were KIA (Hama, Erksine and Williams 98).
Germans laid seige to Moscow for 900 days 2. Hitler intended to level Moscow, kill all 2,000,000 people and turn it into a Reservoir 3. Stalin had built up 38,000 tanks and 35,000 planes in the Ural Mountains 4. Broke through on a 600 mile front, splintering the Germans into thousands of groups 5. Taking back 19,000 cities and towns, including Jewish settlements 6.
People would never forget the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989. Chinese army killed hundreds of their own people in the protest. The BBC describes, “Tanks rumbled through the capital's streets late on 3 June as the army moved into the square from several directions, randomly firing on unarmed protesters.” (BBC news). People would never accept the control of a dictator. As a result, they risk their own life to against that.