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The Nanjing Massacre or the Rape of Nanjing was the mass murder of Chinese civilians by the Imperial Japanese Army in Nanjing,the capital of the Republic of China,immediately after the Battle of Nanking and retreat of the National Revolutionary Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. The massacre took place over a period of six weeks beginning on December 13,1937. Estimates of the death toll vary from a low of 40,000 to a high of over 300,000,and estimates of rapes range from 20,000 to over 80,000. Most scholars support the validity of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East,which estimated that at least 200,000 were killed. Other crimes included torture,looting,and arson. The massacre is considered one of the worst wartime atrocities in history. In addition to civilians,numerous POWs and men who looked of military-age were indiscriminately slaughtered.
Tomoyuki Yamashita was a Japanese convicted war criminal and general in the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Yamashita led Japanese forces during the invasion of Malaya and Battle of Singapore. His conquest of Malaya and Singapore in 70 days earned him the sobriquet "The Tiger of Malaya" and led to the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill calling the ignominious fall of Singapore to Japan the "worst disaster" and "largest capitulation" in British military history. He was assigned to defend the Philippines from the advancing Allies later in the war. Although he was unable to prevent the superior Allied forces from advancing,despite dwindling supplies and Allied guerrilla action,he was able to hold on to part of Luzon until after the formal Surrender of Japan in August 1945.
St Stephen's College (Chinese:聖士提反書院) is a Christian Direct Subsidy Scheme co-educational secondary school in Stanley,Hong Kong. With an area of about 150,000 m2,the college is the largest secondary school in Hong Kong,and is one of the very few boarding schools in the territory. Many buildings in the campus are listed in the list of historic Buildings and Declared Monuments by the Antiquities Advisory Board. When the college was founded in 1903,there were only six boarders and one day student;in the academic year 2014–2015,there were approximately 910 students studying in the college. The current principal is Mrs Julie Ma,commencing duty since 2023. St Stephen's College uses English as the medium of instruction except for Chinese-based subjects. St Stephen's College is the first school in the territory having its own Heritage Trail in the school campus. The college's oldest building,the School House,was declared a monument in 2011,being one of the few schools in Hong Kong to own a Declared Monument in its campus.
During its imperial era,the Empire of Japan committed numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity across various Asian-Pacific nations,notably during the Second Sino-Japanese and Pacific Wars. These incidents have been referred to as "the Asian Holocaust",and "Japan's Holocaust",and also as the "Rape of Asia". The crimes occurred during the early part of the Shōwa era,under Hirohito's reign.
The Battle of Hong Kong,also known as the Defence of Hong Kong and the Fall of Hong Kong,was one of the first battles of the Pacific War in World War II. On the same morning as the attack on Pearl Harbor,forces of the Empire of Japan attacked the British Crown colony of Hong Kong around the same time that Japan declared war on Great Britain. The Hong Kong garrison consisted of British,Indian and Canadian units,also the Auxiliary Defence Units and Hong Kong Volunteer Defence Corps (HKVDC).
Shiro Azuma was a Japanese soldier who openly admitted his participation in Japanese war crimes against the Chinese during World War II. He was one of the few former soldiers of the Empire of Japan to admit to his participation in the 1937 Nanjing Massacre. After his confession,he visited China seven times to apologize and help Chinese scholars find more evidence of the Japanese soldiers' brutality. He prepared an eighth trip to Nanjing but died of cancer on January 3,2006 in Kyoto.
The Bangka Island massacre was the killing of unarmed Australian nurses and wounded Allied soldiers on Bangka Island,east of Sumatra in the Indonesian archipelago on 16 February 1942. Shortly after the outbreak of World War II in the Pacific troops of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered 22 Australian Army nurses,60 Australian and British soldiers,and crew members from the Vyner Brooke. The group were the only survivors from their steamship which had been sunk by Japanese bombers just after the defeat of Singapore. After surrendering to local Japanese forces on Bangka Island,which was then part of the Dutch East Indies,the group and its wounded were taken to a beach where they were killed by being bayonetted and machine gunned in the surf. Only South Australian nurse Sister Lieutenant Vivian Bullwinkel,American Eric Germann and Royal Navy Stoker Ernest Lloyd survived.
The Imperial Japanese occupation of Hong Kong began when the governor of Hong Kong,Sir Mark Young,surrendered the British Crown colony of Hong Kong to the Empire of Japan on 25 December 1941. His surrender occurred after 18 days of fierce fighting against the Japanese forces that invaded the territory. The occupation lasted for three years and eight months until Japan surrendered at the end of the Second World War. The length of the period later became a metonym of the occupation.
The Manila massacre,also called the Rape of Manila,involved atrocities committed against Filipino civilians in the City of Manila,the capital of the Philippines,by Japanese troops during the Battle of Manila which occurred during World War II. At least 100,000 civilians were killed in total during the battle from all causes,including the massacre by Japanese troops.
During World War II,the Allies committed legally proven war crimes and violations of the laws of war against either civilians or military personnel of the Axis powers. At the end of World War II,many trials of Axis war criminals took place,most famously the Nuremberg trials and Tokyo Trials. In Europe,these tribunals were set up under the authority of the London Charter,which only considered allegations of war crimes committed by people who acted in the interests of the Axis powers. Some war crimes involving Allied personnel were investigated by the Allied powers and led in some instances to courts-martial. Some incidents alleged by historians to have been crimes under the law of war in operation at the time were,for a variety of reasons,not investigated by the Allied powers during the war,or were investigated but not prosecuted.
Stanley Military Cemetery is a cemetery located near St. Stephen's Beach in Stanley,Hong Kong. Along with the larger Hong Kong Cemetery,it is one of two military cemeteries of the early colonial era,used for the burials of the members of the garrison and their families between 1841 and 1866. There were no further burials here until World War II (1939–1945).
The Parit Sulong Massacre was a Japanese war crime committed by members of the Imperial Japanese Army on 22 January 1942 in the village of Parit Sulong,British Malaya. Soldiers of the Imperial Guards Division summarily executed approximately 150 wounded Australian and Indian prisoners of war who had surrendered.
Sai Wan War Cemetery is a military cemetery located in Chai Wan,Hong Kong which was built in 1946. The cemetery was created to commemorate soldiers of Hong Kong Garrison who perished during the Second World War. The cemetery also contains 12 World War I burials. A total of 1,528 soldiers,mainly from the Commonwealth,are commemorated here. Most of the remaining burials are located at the Stanley Military Cemetery.
Stanley Internment Camp was a civilian internment camp in Hong Kong during the Second World War. Located in Stanley,on the southern end of Hong Kong Island,it was used by the Japanese imperial forces to hold non-Chinese enemy nationals after their victory in the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941. About 2,800 men,women,and children were held at the non-segregated camp for 44 months from early January 1942 to August 1945 when Japanese forces surrendered. The camp area consisted of St Stephen's College and the grounds of Stanley Prison,excluding the prison itself.
The Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal was established in 1946 by the government of Chiang Kai-shek to judge Imperial Japanese Army officers accused of crimes committed during the Second Sino-Japanese War. It was one of ten tribunals established by the Nationalist government.
The United States Armed Forces and its members have violated the law of war after the signing of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and the signing of the Geneva Conventions. The United States prosecutes offenders through the War Crimes Act of 1996 as well as through articles in the Uniform Code of Military Justice. The United States signed the 1999 Rome Statute but it never ratified the treaty,taking the position that the International Criminal Court (ICC) lacks fundamental checks and balances. The American Service-Members' Protection Act of 2002 further limited US involvement with the ICC. The ICC reserves the right of states to prosecute war crimes,and the ICC can only proceed with prosecution of crimes when states do not have willingness or effective and reliable processes to investigate for themselves. The United States says that it has investigated many of the accusations alleged by the ICC prosecutors as having occurred in Afghanistan,and thus does not accept ICC jurisdiction over its nationals.
The Historiography of the Nanjing Massacre is the representation of the events of the Nanjing Massacre as history,in various languages and cultural contexts,in the years since these events took place. This historiography is disparate and sometimes contested,owing to conflicting currents of Chinese and Japanese nationalist sentiment and national interest,as well as the fog of war.
Sub-Lieutenant Frederick (Fred) Hockley RNVR (1923–1945) was an English Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm fighter pilot who was shot down over Japan while taking part in the last combat mission flown by British aircraft in the Second World War.
The Philippine War Crimes Commission was a commission created in late 1945 by General Douglas MacArthur as Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers to investigate the war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army and Imperial Japanese Navy during the invasion,occupation,and liberation of the Philippines. The investigation by the Commission led to the extradition,prosecution,and conviction of Class A,Class B,and Class C defendants in Manila,Tokyo,and other cities in East and Southeast Asia through the International Military Tribunal for the Far East.
References
- 1 2 3 4 5 Roland, Charles G. (January 1997). "Massacre and Rape in Hong Kong: Two Case Studies Involving Medical Personnel and Patients". Journal of Contemporary History . 32 (1): 52–61. doi:10.1177/002200949703200104. JSTOR 261075. S2CID 159971599.
- 1 2 3 4 Lim, Patricia Pui Huen (2002). Discovering Hong Kong's Cultural Heritage: Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. Oxford University Press. p. 73. ISBN 9780195927238.
- ↑ Dew, Josie. (2002). The Sun in My Eyes: Two-Wheeling East. Warner Books publishing. ISBN 0-7515-3018-2, ISBN 978-0-7515-3018-6. p 184.
- ↑ Linton, Suzannah; HKU Libraries. "WO235/1107". Hong Kong’s War Crimes Trials Collection.