laughing heartily”; quote from Military Commission of the Kuomingtang, Political Department, “A True Record of the Atrocities Committed by the Invading Japanese Army,” compiled July 1938, reprinted in Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing”; Wong Pan Sze testimony before the IMTFE; Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking.”
94. For instance, one Japanese soldier: Forster to his wife, January 24, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
94–95. And on December 22, in a neighborhood near the gate: Zhu Chengshan, The Testimony of the Survivors of the Nanjing Massacre, p. 50.
95. Chinese men were often sodomized: see Shuhsi Hsu, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, no. 430, p. 153. Also Dick Wilson, p. 76.
95. At least one Chinese man was murdered: “Shisou houde nanjing (Nanking After the Fall into Japanese Hands),” Mingzheng yu-gongyu 20 (January 1938). This article is based on interviews with people who escaped from Nanking and arrived in Wuhan on January 18, 1938. It is reprinted in Source Materials Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1985), p. 150.
95. A Chinese woman had tried to disguise herself: Xu Zhigeng, The Rape of Nanking, p. 115; Sun Zhaiwei, 1937 Nanjing Beige, p. 353.
95. Guo Qi, a Chinese battalion commander: Ko Chi (also known as Guo Qi), “Shendu xueluilu (Recording with Blood and Tears the Fallen Capital),” written in the first half of 1938, published in August 1938 by Xijing Pingbao, a Xian newspaper (Xijing is an older name for Xian), reprinted in Source Materials Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1985), p. 13.
95. His report is substantiated: “Deutsche Botschaft China,” report no. 21, starting on page 114, in the German diplomatic reports, National History Archives, Republic of China.
95. One such family was crossing the Yangtze River: Hsu Chuang-ying (witness), testimony before the IMTFE, Records from the Allied Operational/Occupation Headquarters, entry 319, record group 331, p. 2573, National Archives. One survivor, Li Ke-he, witnessed four Japanese soldiers who, after raping a 40- year-old woman, forced her father-in-law and son to have sex with her; see Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking,” p. 68. The IMTFE records also mention a father being forced by the Japanese to rape his own daughters, a brother his sister, and an old man his son’s wife. “Breasts were torn off, and women were stabbed in the bosoms. Chins were smashed and teeth knocked out. Such hideous scenes are unbearable to watch,” the record added; court exhibits, 1948, box 134, entry 14, record group 238, p. 1706, World War II War Crimes Records Collection, National Archives.
96. Many were able to hide from the Japanese for months: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, January 23 and February 24, 1938, pp. 167, 201.
96. In the countryside women hid in covered holes: Ibid., February 23, 1938, p. 200.
96. One Buddhist nun and a little girl: John Magee to “Billy” (signed “John”), January 11, 1938, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
96. Some used disguise—rubbing soot on their faces: Bergamini, Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, p. 37; Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, December 17, 1937, p. 115.
96. One clever young woman disguised herself as an old woman: Minnie Vautrin, diary 1937–40, January 23, 1938, p. 168.
96. Others feigned sickness, such as the woman: Hsu Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone, no. 408, p. 158.
96. Another woman took the advice: Forster’s undated letter to his wife, Ernest and Clarissa Forster Collection.
96. One girl barely avoided assault: John Magee, letter to his wife, January 1, 1938, archives of David Magee.
96. Those who defied the Japanese: Gao Xingzu, Wu Shimin, Hu Yungong, and Zha Ruizhen, “Japanese Imperialism and the Massacre in Nanjing.”
96. A schoolteacher gunned down five Japanese soldiers: Hu Hua-ling, “Chinese Women Under the Rape of Nanking,” p. 68.
97. In 1937, eighteen-year-old Li Xouying: Li Xouying, interview with the author, Nanking, July 27, 1995.
100. “The question is so big”: Miner Searle Bates testimony before the IMTFE, pp. 2629–30.
100. The Chinese military specialist Liu Fang-chu: Li En-han, “Questions of How Many Chinese Were Killed by the Japanese Army in the Great Nanking Massacre,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China (August 1990).
100. Officials at the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanking Massacre by Japanese Invaders: Author’s interviews with museum officials. The number 300,000 is inscribed prominently on the museum’s entrance. Honda Katsuichi, a Japanese writer, went back to Nanking a few decades later to check the stories for himself. He thinks that 200,000 Chinese were killed by the second day of the capture of the city and that by February the death toll had risen to 300,000. (Wilson, When Tigers Fight, pp. 81–82.) The Chinese historian Li En-han said that “the estimate of the total number of deaths… as 300,000 is absolutely reliable.” (Hu Hua-ling, “Commemorating the 53rd Anniversary of the Great Nanking Massacre: Refuting Shintaro Ishihara’s Absurdity and Lie,” Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China, November 1990, p. 27.)
100. The IMTFE judges concluded that more than 260,000 people: “Table: Estimated Number of Victims of Japanese Massacre in Nanking,” document no. 1702, box 134, IMTFE records, court exhibits, 1948, World War II War Crimes Records Collection, entry 14, record group 238, National Archives.
100. Fujiwara Akira, a Japanese historian: Hu Hua-ling, “Commemorating the 53rd Anniversary,” p. 72.
100. John Rabe, who never conducted a systematic count: John Rabe, “Enemy Planes over Nanking,” report to Adolf Hitler, in the Yale Divinity School Library. Rabe writes: “According to Chinese reports, a total of 100,000 Chinese civilians were murdered. But that seems to be an overassessment—we Europeans estimate the number to be somewhere between 50,000 and 60,000.”
100. The Japanese author Hata Ikuhiko claims: Cook and Cook, Japan at War, p. 39.
100. Still others in Japan: Ibid.
100. In 1994 archival evidence emerged: United Press International, May 10, 1994.
100. Perhaps no one has made a more thorough study: Sun Zhaiwei, “The Nanking Massacre and the Nanking Population,” pp. 75–80; “Guanyu nanjing datusa siti chunide yenjou (On the Subject of Body Disposal During the Nanking Massacre),” Nanjing Shehui Kexue 44, no. 4 (1991): 72–78.
100. Nanjing zizhi weiyuanhui: The setting up of such a puppet government was a longstanding custom of the Japanese in areas of China they occupied and it enabled the Japanese to preserve local structures of power and make some local elites beholden to them.
101. However, this statistic balloons still larger: Archival Documents Relating to the Horrible Massacre (1987), pp. 101–3; “150,000 Bodies Dumped in River in Nanking Massacre Affidavit,” Reuters, December 14, 1990.
102. For instance, in his paper: Wu Tien-wei, “Let the Whole World Know the Nanking Massacre: A Review of Three Recent Pictorial Books on the Massacre and Its Studies,” report distributed in 1997 by the Society for Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China.
103. The authors James Yin and Shi Young: Shi Young, telephone interview with the author.
103. They dismiss arguments from other experts: It is difficult to say how many bodies washed up along the river were eventually buried along the banks. On April 11, 1938, Minnie Vautrin wrote in
