Thread by @TruthBehindFake

#Nanking Incident
Military History Series, Vol. 086, "Shina Incident Army Operations Until January 1938" (Military History Compilation Office, National Institute for Defense Studies, Defense Agency, issued July 25, 1975), pp. 436-438 (in Japanese).

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Because of the large number of foreign interests in Nanjing and the large number of non-combatants and residents, the district military commanders were instructed to strictly observe military morals. In response, the military took strict measures in accordance with the law.

However, foreign correspondents who remained in the region at the time reported and disseminated vivid accounts of the devastation of the war to the rest of the world. For example, H. J. Timberlane, the China correspondent of the Manchester Guardian newspaper in England,

edited and published "Japanese Military Atrocities in China" in July 1938, and the American journalist Edgar Snow introduced it in his book "The War in Asia" (published in 1941), impressing upon the world the "frenzy of militaristic Japan.

In his book, "The War in Asia" (published in 1941), the American journalist Edgar Snow tried to impress upon the world the "mania of militarist Japan. The most emphasized point in the book was the massacre of hundreds of thousands of prisoners of war and local residents

by the Japanese army.

This was the case at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and the Special Military Tribunal in Nanjing after the war. At the Nanjing Tribunal, Lieutenant General Hisao Tani and four other military officers were executed

for the massacre of approximately 300,000 soldiers for political reasons that made the executions themselves necessary. The Tokyo court ruled that during the first month of the occupation of Nanking, 12,000 non-combatants, including men, women, and children, 20,000 victims

of the prodigal war, and more than 30,000 prisoners of war were killed, for a total of more than 62,000.
However, a trivial examination of the evidence makes these figures totally unbelievable.

On the other hand, the Japanese military at that time judged the Chinese forces defending the Nanking area to be approximately 100,000 troops, and announced on December 18, 1937 that "the enemy's abandoned corpses amounted to no less than 80,000 to 90,000,

and the number of prisoners of war to several thousand," but in January of the following year it calculated "the enemy losses (casualties) were approximately 80,000, of which 53,874 corpses were abandoned. However, this figure was also questionable,

considering that it was customary for the Japanese military to overstate its war results.

However, the reason why this was taken up as an incident was because there were some facts, which were misunderstood, perverted, and further hyped up.

The following is a synthesis of the various documents.
The Chinese defense forces used the "empty room and clear field" tactic in the area of operation, so the damage to the general population would have been great.

In addition, the Battle of Nanking was a battle of complete encirclement and annihilation, so it is only natural that the Chinese forces suffered much damage as a result of their combat operations.

The problem is that
(1) in the battle to sweep up the defeated soldiers immediately after the occupation, many non-combatants and residents were killed as collateral damage, especially in the northern and western areas of Nanjing

where Chinese retreating troops and refugees were mixed up. However, even unarmed residents who cooperated with the military or were involved in the fighting against the enemy during the fighting must be considered combatants.

(2) The population of Nanjing was approximately 1,000,000 in peacetime and approximately 300,000 at the beginning of the Nanjing invasion, of which several tens of thousands were evacuated between operations, and more than 200,000 of them were generally gathered in refugee areas

when the Japanese occupied the city. Immediately after the fall of Nanking, however, the city was in a state of complete anarchy and confusion (according to Counselor Shinrokuro Hidaka).

However, many of the defeated soldiers either laid down their weapons or disguised themselves as local residents and went into hiding. It was extremely difficult to find and arrest these soldiers from among the residents,

so it is believed that there were some casualties among the unarmed residents in this case.
(3) Surrenders were sometimes not recognized as prisoners of war, and thus not treated as such. Since the Japanese attacking forces had fewer troops than the Chinese forces,

even if someone surrendered during combat operations, they did not have the manpower to monitor them as POWs, and they would only slow them down, and there were many precedents of false surrenders, and it was difficult to determine

whether the Chinese soldiers had truly lost their will to fight or not. The reason for this was that there were many precedents of false surrenders, it was difficult to determine whether the Chinese soldiers had truly lost the will to fight,

the fear and hostility of the Japanese soldiers were strong, and it was difficult to make calm decisions in an imminent kill-or-be-killed situation, and there were no facilities or supply capabilities to treat them as prisoners of war.

This is due to the nature of the operation, which is to attack a well-defended enemy and fight an urban battle after a fierce pursuit, and cannot be blamed solely on the Japanese frontline troops.

(4) The treatment of prisoners of war after the capture of Nanjing cannot be said to be sufficient. This is due to the hostility of the generals immediately after the fierce fighting and the inadequate POW internment facilities,

but the number of POWs killed does not seem to have been very large. It is reported that a large number of POWs were massacred in the 13th Division. On the 15th, the Yamada Brigade captured over 14,000 near the Bakufuyama Battery,

but released the non-combatants and captured about 8,000. However, half of them escaped that night. The brigade commander, who was troubled about the treatment of the POWs due to the lack of alert troops and insufficient food, moved them to the opposite bank

of the Yangtze River on the night of the 17th in an attempt to release them there.
However, panic broke out among the POWs, and they attacked the guards. As a result, about 1,000 POWs were shot dead and the others escaped, while seven Japanese officers and

others were killed in action. The 16th Division also interned several thousand prisoners of war in the ruins of the army prison.

Although it is impossible to give specific and accurate figures for each of the above items, it is difficult to say that the bodies found in the vicinity of Nanking were the result of a planned and organized "massacre," since most of them were the result of combat operations.

However, it is regrettable that even a small number of innocent people were killed or injured, and that the treatment of prisoners of war was not appropriate.

According to the "Memoirs of Inotaro Ishii," who was then Director General of the East Asia Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, from late December 1937 to January of the following year,

there were reports from the local consul general of the Japanese Army regarding the Japanese Army's lack of military discipline, and Director General Ishii demanded remorse on the part of the Army at a meeting of the heads of the three ministries of the Army, Navy and

Foreign Affairs, and Foreign Minister Hirota also warned Minister Sugiyama. In the Army, on January 7, the Chief of the General Staff issued an unprecedented "instruction" regarding the military discipline of the troops in the war, and the Minister of War also took measures to

improve the military discipline during January to February.

As an appendix, I will expose the propaganda of CCP as below.

https://twitter.com/TruthBehindFake/status/1619958944851722240?s=20