The Rape of Nanking

Here's a passage-

The Rape of Nanking should be remembered not only for the number of people slaughtered but for the cruel manner in which many met their deaths. Chinese men were used for boyonet practice and in decapitaion contests. An estimated 20,000 to 60,000 Chinese women were raped. Many soldiers went beyond rape to disembowel women, slice off their breasts, nail them alive to walls. Fathers were forced to rape their daughters, and sons their mothers, as other family members watched. Not only did live burials, castration, the carving of organs, and the roasting of people become routine, but more diabolical tortures were practiced, such as hanging people by their tongues on iron hooks or burying people to their waists and watching them get torn apart by German Shepards. So sickening was the spectacle that even the Na*is in the city were horrified, one proclaiming the massacre to be the work of "bestial machinery."

The book said that not many people had heard of it (written in the mid 90's) because it was never mentioned in any text books. The reason being was that both China and the United States needed Japan as a trade partner. Not only that, Japan received no post war ramifications for the slaughters.

For the record, 300,000 Chinese died during this raid. More than both atomic bombs dropped in Japan...combined.

My question is. How many of you have heard of this?

---booba, i believe you suggested this book to me?

I did, did you end up reading it? It's fascinating because of how few people know about it, but it is so depressing. The stuff that went on there goes beyond what happened in the Holocaust.

Yeah it does get worse, in parts, than the holocaust. Hard to compare two crimes like that.

I didn't finish reading it. I enjoy what little sanity i have left.

Well maybe after a break you could pick it up and finish it. I remember feeling pretty blue for a while after reading it. Just crazy that Japan refuses to acknowledge what happened there.

The United States had fighter pilots in China fighting against the Japanese before the attack on Pearl Harbour.

German U-Boats were sinking US merchant vessels in the Gulf of Mexico before Pearl Harbour was attacked.

There is a plethora of information about WWII that people don't know. It seems the only thing children are taught in school is that the US dropped two atomic bombs on Japan, and for that we should all hang our heads in shame. But the reality is, Tokyo was firebombed conventially for weeks, and the human toll was much higher than the casualties inflicted at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The Soviet army was massed for a full scale invasion of Japan. Our atomic bombing served two purposes: An immediate surrender by Japan, and a warning to the Soviets that if they invaded Japan, they would be next.

A few years later, American traitors, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg gave the Soviets our blueprints for atomic weapons, but by then, Japan was safe from communist domination.

The Japanese should thank us every day, if not for the atomic bombings, today they would look much like Poland.

You should read the Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang. She committed suicide after writing the book.

As for the Japanese attrocities committed against people in China, Burma, the Phillipines et al, the Japanese have never made a formal admission of guilt or an apology.

Politics and trade have always required a diplomatic dance around these nasty sort of things.

Ollie, your statement that the Japanese should thank us is callous and chilling, to say the least.
I was in Nanking this summer, and the memorial is beyond description. The Japanese crimes in Nanking were horrendous. It is also awful to dismiss the dropping of two atomic bombs because of the benefits you perceive these actions achieved.
Just today another teacher and I were saying how encouraging it is that our students seem to be too young to harbor the irrational fears of communism that were bred in American children until quite recently. The Cold War, McCarthyism, and the second red scare are all dark parts of American history.

I'd have to agree with ethan. "thanking" anyone that dropped not one but two bombs that destroyed entire cities is a horrendous statement.

Things may have been worse if the russians got into japan but there is no telling. It is purely speculation.

Most everything that happened in the pacific theatre was an atrocity. Although I think it needs to be taught to the degree in which the events actually happened, unfortunately, that will never happen. The US school system is far too enthralled with blowing sunshine up the students' arses to cover something so graphic.

BTW, keep telling us about how great a person Columbus was...that should make it true.

ethan wrote:Ollie, your statement that the Japanese should thank us is callous and chilling, to say the least.
I was in Nanking this summer, and the memorial is beyond description. The Japanese crimes in Nanking were horrendous. It is also awful to dismiss the dropping of two atomic bombs because of the benefits you perceive these actions achieved.
Just today another teacher and I were saying how encouraging it is that our students seem to be too young to harbor the irrational fears of communism that were bred in American children until quite recently. The Cold War, McCarthyism, and the second red scare are all dark parts of American history.

It's not like I am comparing two mildly sadistic events. I'm comparing two nuclear bombs that whiped out two entire cities that changed the way human beings look at war fare. And a Russian army that was hell bent on revenge with anybody that happened to be in their way.

While the nuclear bombs had major ramifications that last for over 20 years, what the Russians could have imposed may have lasted an eternity.

Although both are great evils, one is far greater and to me; that great evil was the Russians.

ethan wrote:Ollie, your statement that the Japanese should thank us is callous and chilling, to say the least.
I was in Nanking this summer, and the memorial is beyond description. The Japanese crimes in Nanking were horrendous. It is also awful to dismiss the dropping of two atomic bombs because of the benefits you perceive these actions achieved.
Just today another teacher and I were saying how encouraging it is that our students seem to be too young to harbor the irrational fears of communism that were bred in American children until quite recently. The Cold War, McCarthyism, and the second red scare are all dark parts of American history.

Maybe thanking us is a bit overboard, but what he says is rooted in absolute truths. Had the bombs not been dropped, Japan as a whole would most likely have suffered total anihilation. They participated in an act of war against us, so they had to deal with the consequences. War is not pretty, and whether things are justifiable or not can't often be determined in the heat of battle.