Editing Nanjing Massacre (section)

==== Mass Executions ====
The massacres were organized to kill as many people within a short timeframe, which usually meant rows of unarmed prisoners being mowed down by machine gun fire before being finished off with bayonets or revolvers. The massacres were usually conducted on the banks of the Yangtze River to facilitate the mass disposal of corpses.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Harmsen |first=Peter |title=Nanjing 1937, Battle for a Doomed City |date=2015 |publisher=Casemate |page=241}}</ref>[[File:A waterpond filled with the bodies of executed Chinese soldiers who got safety promise by Japanese (b), Nanjing Massacre.jpg|thumb|Chinese POWs who were executed by the Japanese army after false promises of clemency]]
In one of the largest massacres, Japanese troops from the Yamada Detachment including the 65th Infantry Regiment systemically led 17,000 to 20,000 Chinese prisoners to the banks of the Yangtze River near Mufushan and machine gunned them to death. They then disposed of the corpses by burning or flushing them downstream. Recent research by Ono Kenji has found that the mass killings were pre-planned and executed in a systemic manner in accordance with orders issued directly by Prince Asaka.<ref name=":12" />

A soldier from the IJA's 13th Division described killing wounded survivors of the Mufushan massacre in his diary:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Frank |first=Richard B. |title=Tower of Skulls: A History of the Asia-Pacific War, July 1937-May 1942 |date=2020 |page=52}}</ref>

<blockquote>I figured that I'd never get another chance like this, so I stabbed thirty of the damned Chinks. Climbing atop the mountain of corpses, I felt like a real devil-slayer, stabbing again and again, with all my might. 'Ugh, ugh,' the Chinks groaned. There were old folks as well as kids, but we killed them lock, stock, and barrel. I also borrowed a buddy's sword and tried to decapitate some. I've never experienced anything so unusual.</blockquote>
In the Straw String Gorge Massacre, occurred along the banks of the Yangtze River on December 18. For most of the morning, Japanese soldiers tied the POWs' hands together. At dusk, the soldiers divided POWs into four columns and opened fire. Unable to escape, the POWs could only scream and thrash desperately. It took an hour for the sounds of death to stop and even longer for the Japanese to bayonet each individual. The majority of the bodies were dumped directly into the Yangtze River.<ref>{{cite web |last=Van Ells |first=Mark D. |date=July 14, 2009 |title=Nanjing, China |url=https://www.historynet.com/nanjing-china.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210130030155/https://www.historynet.com/nanjing-china.htm |archive-date=January 30, 2021}}</ref>

In many other instances, prisoners were decapitated, used for bayonet practice, or tied together, doused in gasoline and set on fire. Wounded Chinese soldiers who remaining in the city were killed in their hospital beds, bayonetted, clubbed, or dragged outside and burned alive.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dorn |first=Frank |title=The Sino-Japanese War, 1937–1941 |date=1974 |publisher=MacMillan |page=92}}</ref>

The Japanese also extended their "search-and-destroy" operations to the Nanjing countryside. During the Battle of Nanjing, one of the Cantonese ([[New Guangxi clique|Guangdong]]) armies had broken out of the Japanese encirclement and formed guerrilla bands that harassed Japanese forces whilst retreating south. In retaliation, Japanese units systemically wiped out towns and villages spread out in the outlying regions, perpetrating rapes, arson and indiscriminate massacres which "added up to an enormous number" of deaths.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wakabayashi |first=Bob |title=The Nanking Atrocity, 1937–1938: Complicating the Picture. |date=2000b |publisher=Berghan |page=64}}</ref>[[File:Chinese to be beheaded in Nanking Massacre.jpg|thumb|upright|A Chinese POW about to be beheaded by a Japanese officer using a [[shin-guntō]]]]

Japanese troops gathered 1,300 Chinese soldiers and civilians at [[Taiping Gate]] and murdered them. The victims were blown up with [[landmine]]s, then doused with petrol and set on fire. The survivors were killed with bayonets.<ref name="Taiping">{{cite news |last=Bristow |first=Michael |date=December 13, 2007 |title=Nanjing remembers massacre victims |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7140357.stm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071214003451/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7140357.stm |archive-date=December 14, 2007 |access-date=December 13, 2007 |work=[[BBC News]]}}</ref>

U.S. news correspondents [[F. Tillman Durdin]] and [[Archibald Steele]] reported seeing corpses of massacred Chinese soldiers forming mounds six feet high at the Nanjing Yijiang gate in the north. Durdin, who worked for ''[[The New York Times]]'', toured Nanjing before his departure from the city. He heard waves of machine-gun fire and witnessed the Japanese soldiers gun down some two hundred Chinese within ten minutes. He would later state that he had seen tank guns used on bound soldiers.

Two days later, in his report to ''[[The New York Times]]'', Durdin stated that the alleys and streets were filled with the dead, among them women and children. Durdin stated "[i]t should be said that certain Japanese units exercised restraint and that certain Japanese officers tempered power with generosity and commission", but continued "the conduct of the Japanese army as a whole in Nanjing was a blot on the reputation of their country".<ref>Durdin, F. Tillman. "Japanese Atrocities Marked Fall of Nanking After Chinese Command Fled." New York Times (New York), January 9, 1938; accessed March 12, 2016.</ref><ref>Hua-ling Hu, ''[[American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking: The Courage of Minnie Vautrin]]'', 2000, p. 77.<!-- ISSN/ISBN needed --></ref>
[[File:Photo 11 (The "Shame" Album).jpg|thumb|Japanese soldiers behead a Chinese man]]
Ralph L. Phillips, a [[missionary]], testified to the U.S. State Assembly Investigating Committee, that he was "forced to watch while the Japs [[disemboweled]] a Chinese soldier" and "roasted his heart and liver and [[Cannibalism|ate them]]".<ref>''CBI Roundup'', December 16, 1943, ''Rape of Nanking described by Missionary'', [http://cbi-theater-1.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-1/roundup/roundup121643.html cbi-theater-1.home.comcast.net] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110723045856/http://cbi-theater-1.home.comcast.net/~cbi-theater-1/roundup/roundup121643.html|date=July 23, 2011}}</ref>

Just after Christmas, the Japanese set up public stages where they called upon former Chinese soldiers to confess, claiming they would not be harmed. When over 200 former soldiers did come forward, they were promptly executed. When former soldiers stopped identifying themselves, the Japanese began rounding up groups of young men who "aroused suspicion".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Mitter |first=Rana |title=Forgotten Ally: China's World War II, 1937–1945 |year=2013 |page=138}}</ref>