World War 2: The

Japanese Occupation

of Eastern China

The topics that will be discussed are:

• The Invasion of Manchuria (18 September 1931 – 27 February 1932)

• The Marco Polo Bridge Incident (7–9 July 1937)

• The Second Sino-Japanese War: The Battle of Shanghai (August 13, 1937

– November 26, 1937)

• Atrocities at Nanking (December 13, 1937 – January 1938)

Prepared by Karu Ashwin

The Mukden Incident

(September 18, 1931 – February

18, 1932)

• A plot where a Japanese official detonated an explosive close to

Japan’s South Manchurian Railway.

• Japan insisted that the Chinese were the perpetrators and they used

this as an excuse to invade Manchuria.

The

Invasion of

Manchuria

• The Japanese Army immediately invaded Manchuria after the

Mukden Incident.

• After defeating local Chinese forces, Japan established a puppet

state named Manchukuo.

• Japan’s occupation lasted until the end of World War 2.

The Marco Polo

Bridge Incident

• When the Japanese carried out training exercises which they had not

notified the Chinese about, the two sides exchanged a few shots.

• The Japanese discovered that one of their soldiers were missing and

blamed the Chinese.

• The Japanese demanded that they be demanded to search for him in

Wanping but the Chinese said they would do it themselves.

• The Japanese agreed with the condition that one of their officers be

allowed to accompany the search effort but the Japanese military

tried to forcefully enter Wanping, but they were driven off.

• Japan used the incident as an excuse to launch an offensive on the

rest of China.

• This led to the Second Sino-Japanese War.

• In 1937, Beijing, Shanghai and then Nanking, the capital of the

Kuomintang party fell.

• Subsequently, this led to the Nanking Massacre.

The Second Sino-Japanese

War: The Battle of Shanghai

The Republic of China The Empire of Japan

Army National Revolutionary Army Imperial Japanese Army

Navy − Imperial Japanese Navy

Commander Chiang Kai-Shek Heisuke Yanagawa

Strength 700,000 troops in 70

divisions and 7 brigades, 180

aircraft, 40 tanks

300,000 troops in 9 divisions

and a brigade, 500 aircraft,

300 tanks, 130 naval ships

Casualties 250,000 40,000

Result − Japanese victory

• Despite China’s larger number of troops, it was not match forJapan’s superior air force, and more experienced, trained andskilled army.

• Japan expected the battle to end quickly with victory.

• Surprisingly, the battle lasted for three months despite Japan’spowerful artillery, navy and tanks as the Chinese forces weredetermined and brave but lacked sufficient modes oftransportation, experience, coordination and strategy.

A machine gun nest

Japanese amphibious landingsThe city after a bombing run

The Nanking

Massacre• The Nanking Massacre was a six week long ordeal of the

population on Nanking where the Imperial Japanese Army burned

and looted properties and houses, murdered around 300,000

soldiers and civilians and raped around 80,000 women.

• This massacre is also known as The Rape of Nanking.

• The reason for this massacre is revenge because Japan’s forces were

infuriated by the poorly trained Chinese troops’ resistance.

• The Japanese army was an army that preferred death over surrender

and when the Chinese forces surrendered, the Japanese treated them

with nothing but contempt.

• They slaughtered around 20,000 young men who surrendered to

them and the Japanese burned anything resourceful (food supplies,

forests, land, houses).

• Later on, to prevent the spread of diseases, the Japanese buried

civilians alive or rounded them up in slaughter pits.

• Here, they were used for bayonet practice, hacked to death or burnt

alive.

• Their bodies were then dumped into the Yangtze River.

• After looting everything that was valuable, the Japanese started fires

that devastated around one third of Nanking.

A bayonet

• Japanese troops even had beheading contests.

• In the first four weeks itself, the Japanese brutally raped, mutilated

and then murdered 30,000 women.

• A large portion of these rapes were systematized in a process in

which soldiers would go from door to door, searching for girls, with

many women being captured and gang raped. The women were often

killed immediately after being raped, often through explicit

mutilation or by penetrating vaginas with bayonets, long sticks of

bamboo, or other objects.

• Young children were not exempt from these atrocities and were cut

open to allow Japanese soldiers to rape them.

• Pregnant women were not spared. In several instances, they were

raped, then had their bellies slit open and the foetuses torn out.

• Sometimes, after storming into a house and encountering a whole

family, the Japanese forced Chinese men to rape their own

daughters, sons to rape their mothers, and brothers their sisters, while

the rest of the family was made to watch.

A Few Accounts

of the Massacre• December 18, 4 p.m., at No. 18 I Ho Lu, Japanese soldiers wanted a

man's cigarette case and when he hesitated, one of the soldier

crashed in the side of his head with a bayonet.

• On December 16, seven girls (ages ranged from 16 to 21) were taken

away from the Military College. Five returned. Each girl was raped

six or seven times daily

• On December 13, about 30 soldiers came to a Chinese house at #5 Hsing Lu

Koo in the south-eastern part of Nanking, and demanded entrance. The door

was open by the landlord, a Mohammedan named Ha. They killed him

immediately with a revolver and also Mrs. Ha, who knelt before them after

Ha's death, begging them not to kill anyone else. Mrs. Ha asked them why they

killed her husband and they shot her. Mrs. Hsia was dragged out from under a

table in the guest hall where she had tried to hide with her 1 year old baby.

After being stripped and raped by one or more men, she was bayoneted in the

chest, and then had a bottle thrust into her vagina. The baby was killed with a

bayonet. Some soldiers then went to the next room, where Mrs. Hsia's parents,

aged 76 and 74, and her two daughters aged 16 and 14 [were]. They were

about to rape the girls when the grandmother tried to protect them. The

soldiers killed her with a revolver. The grandfather grasped the body of his

wife and was killed. The two girls were then stripped, the elder being raped by

2–3 men, and the younger by 3. The older girl was stabbed afterwards and a

cane was rammed in her vagina. The younger girl was bayoneted also but was

spared the horrible treatment that had been meted out to her sister and mother.

The soldiers then bayoneted another sister of between 7–8, who was also in the

room. The last murders in the house were of Ha's two children, aged 4 and 2

respectively. The older was bayoneted and the younger split down through the

head with a sword.

Sources

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Shanghai

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Sino-Japanese_War

• https://images.google.com/

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_invasion_of_Manchuria#Resistance_to_the

_Japanese_invasion

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mukden_Incident

• http://totallyhistory.com/marco-polo-bridge-incident/

• http://www.historytoday.com/richard-cavendish/marco-polo-bridge-incident

• http://www.history.com/topics/nanjing-massacre