Nanjing 1937 Battle for a Doomed City

165 Pages·2015·5.05 MB·English

by  Harmsen

Nanjing 1937
Battle for a Doomed City
Peter Harmsen
Contents
Author’s Note
PROLOGUE
1 A NEW BATTLE BEGINS
CHAPTER
2 “MOVING OUT!”
CHAPTER
3 THE LINE IS CROSSED
CHAPTER
4 BATTLE AT LAKE TAI
CHAPTER
5 WINTER
CHAPTER
6 ENEMY AT THE GATES
CHAPTER
7 DECISIVE DAYS
CHAPTER
8 THE FALL
CHAPTER
9 TERROR
CHAPTER
10 AFTERMATH
CHAPTER
APPENDIX ORDERS OF BATTLE
Acknowledgments
Notes
Image Gallery
Bibliography
Maps
China and Northeast Asia: 1937
Lower Yangtze Area: Late 1937
Nanjing: Late 1937
Japanese Advance: Middle of November, 1937
Japanese Advance: Late November, 1937
Battle of Jiangyin
Battle of Lake Tai
Japanese Advance on Nanjing: Early December, 1937
Akao Junzo’s Battle: December 3, 1937
Nanjing Area: Before Final Storm of City
Battle for The Gate of Enlightenment: December 10, 1937
Fall of Nanjing
Author’s Note
T have been hotly
HE PROS AND CONS OF THE PINYIN SYSTEM OF TRANSLITERATION
debated. However, the fact is that in the early 21st century it is far
more commonly used than any competing system and, therefore, it has
been adopted in this book, with only a few exceptions where other
more traditional spellings are used universally. For example, China’s
ruler at the time is referred to as Chiang Kai-shek, not Jiang Jieshi,
and China’s longest river is the Yangtze, not the Changjiang. I have
also opted to refer to the Chinese capital by its pinyin spelling,
Nanjing. In a few instances, especially in direct quotes, the spelling
more common at the time, Nanking, has been preserved.
More generally, geographical names are given in their modern
form rather than in the form common in 1937, so they are more
recognizable to the reader (e.g. Beijing instead of Beiping and Taiwan
instead of Formosa). In a few cases, I have decided to provide direct
translations of Chinese place names, for example, Purple Mountain
instead of Zijinshan or Gate of Enlightenment instead of Guanghua
Gate. The main purpose is to make the text easier for the non-Chinese
speaker to follow.
It is the custom in China to place the family name (usually one
syllable) first, followed by the given name (usually two syllables).
This custom has been followed in this book. For Japanese names, I
also follow the Japanese practice of putting family names first.
Despite advice from Japanese linguists, I have refrained from using
diacritic marks to indicate the length of vowels. This is because I wish
to make the text easier on the eye.

This book is the result of lengthy research using a large number of
mainly first-hand sources. The narrative has been constructed using
this source material and is the result of a long series of individual
choices. Each of these choices could have turned out differently had
another writer been at work, and the end result would have been a
very different book. I welcome discussion of the choices I have made.
The easiest way is to visit my website www.chinaww2.com or my
Facebook page, www.facebook.com/chinaww2. Only through a frank
and open debate will we be able to gradually approach that elusive
and essentially unachievable object—to recount history as it really
was.

Prologue
D 1937 early 1938,
URING THE COURSE OF SIX TERRIBLE WEEKS IN LATE AND
Nanjing was transformed from a name into a symbol. Nanjing, or
Nanking as it was known in the West at the time, became the victim
of the intense and indiscriminate violence of a victorious army bent on
revenge. Its helpless people were subjected to rape and murder on a
scale that maintains its capacity to shock, even in a world that has
since been exposed only too often to man’s ability to inflict pain on
fellow human beings, from Nazi-occupied Europe in the early 1940s
to Cambodia in the 1970s and Rwanda in the 1990s. Like these places,
Nanjing has become instantly recognizable as a chapter in the thick
book of 20th-century terror.
The lengthy battle for Nanjing, the five-week campaign that
preceded the six weeks of slaughter, is much less known to the
Western public, and for that matter the Chinese public as well. Chiang
Kai-shek’s army, consisting of soldiers from all over the continent-
sized nation, put up a determined fight to make the Japanese invader
pay as high a price as possible for every inch of Chinese soil he
conquered. Nanjing 1937 is remembered as a tale of Chinese
victimhood, but prior to that it was also a tale of Chinese heroism.
Like many other Second Sino-Japanese War battles, it deserves, but