NO AMERICAN WITNESSED THE NANJING “MASSACRE”
Matsumura Toshio, HistorianSociety for the Dissemination of History Fact ©

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NO AMERICAN WITNESSED THE NANJING “MASSACRE”
Matsumura Toshio

Foreword
Many Americans believe that Japanese military personnel slaughtered hundreds ofthousands of Chinese civilians immediately after emerging victorious from the Battle of
Nanjing on December 13, 1937; they refer to that carnage as the “Nanjing massacre.” Iris
Chang’s The Rape of Nanking is one written work that claims to prove that such atrocities
were indeed perpetrated. However, her book has been largely discredited, veering as it
does, so far from the facts. Discerning people who wish to consult fair and impartial
sources, and then arrive at their own conclusions, are certain to turn to accounts written
by Americans who witnessed such crimes.

Eyewitnesses to Massacre: American
Missionaries Bear Witness to Japanese
Atrocities in Nanjing would seem to be theideal resource for truth-seekers to consult.
The book, published in 1984 by the New
York firm M.E. Sharpe, is based on
documents housed at the Yale University
Divinity School Library. Those documents
include letters written by Christian
missionaries and other Americans residing inNanjing at the time the atrocities are alleged
to have occurred, to family members who had
left Nanjing for safer locations. Unlike
propaganda, which is designed for public
consumption, they are private in nature. Since
they were addressed to relatives, we canassume that they express the writers’ true
sentiments. What sort of people makeappearances in this book? The following
biographical summaries were taken directly from Eyewitnesses to Massacre.
Minnie Vautrin: In 1912, Vautrin graduated from the University of Illinois witha major in education. Then she was commissioned by the United ChristianMissionary Society as a missionary to China. Vautrin became chairman of theeducation department of Ginling College when it was founded in 1916, and she
once served as acting president of Ginling College.

2Miner Searle Bates: Bates won a Rhodes Scholarship to study history at Oxford
University and earned his M.A. in 1920. The United Christian Missionary
Society then commissioned him as a missionary to teach at the University of
Nanking. He was a professor in the departments of politics and history and once
served as the vice president of the university.
(…)
Robert O. Wilson: Born in Nanking in 1906, Wilson was the son of a Methodist
missionary family. Wilson graduated from Princeton University and received his
M.D. from Harvard Medical School in 1929. Appointed to the staff of the
University of Nanking hospital in 1935, he arrived there in 1936.
Lewis S. C. Smythe: Smythe received his Ph.D. in sociology from the
University of Chicago and was appointed to teach at the University of Nanking
by the United Christian Missionary Society in 1934. He was a professor in thedepartment of sociology.
(…)
James H. McCallum: McCallum graduated from the University of Oregon in1917 and earned his B.D. from Yale Divinity School in 1921; later he earned amaster’s degree at Chicago Divinity School and did doctoral work at the Union
Theological Seminary while on furlough. He moved to China in 1921, andengaged in evangelical and community center work for the United ChristianMissionary Society. In the winter of 1937, he volunteered to remain in Nanking
as administrator of the University of Nanking hospital.
John G. Magee: Magee graduated from Yale in 1906 and received a B.D. fromthe Episcopal Theological School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1911. He wasordained as a minister in the Episcopal Church and set off for China in 1912. Heserved as chairman of the Nanking Branch of the International Red Cross after
the capture of Nanking. Together with M.S. Bates, he was engaged in relief workfor the refugees.
George A. Fitch: Born in Suzhou, China, in 1883, Fitch was the son of a
Presbyterian missionary family. He graduated from Wooster College in 1906,
then attended Union Theological Seminary in New York. He was ordained in1901 and returned to China to work with the Young Men’s Christian Association(YMCA) in Shanghai. He served as director of the Safety Zone after the fall of
Nanking.
W. Plumer Mills: Mills graduated from Davidson College in 1903 and received
a B.A. from Oxford University in 1910 and a B.D. from Columbia TheologicalSeminary in 1912. Mills served under the YMCA in China from 1912 to 1931
and then under the Presbyterian Foreign Mission Board in Nanking from 1933 to1949. He is one of the important leaders of the relief work during the fall of
Nanking.
Ernest H. Forster: Forster graduated from Princeton University in 1917. In
1919, Forster went to China as an Episcopal missionary and taught at Mahan

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School in Yangzhou. He and his family were transferred from Yangzhou toNanking to serve at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church only about one month before thecapture of Nanking. Forster, with John Magee, another Episcopal minister,remained in Nanking throughout the critical months of the Nanking Massacreand helped in the relief work.

These summary biographies tell us that everyone mentioned above was the beneficiary of
Christian education, and was engaged in missionary work in Nanjing.
If nine educated Christians left records stating that they had personally observed Japanesemilitary personnel slaughtering or assaulting Chinese civilians, such records would serveas powerful evidence that the massacre allegations are true. Unfortunately andsurprisingly, their records, which occupy more than 400 pages, do not serve that purpose.
Not one of the authors of these documents states claims to have witnessed Japanesesoldiers murdering civilians at any time during the period beginning with the fall of
Nanjing (December 13) and ending with the dawning of 1938. Nor did any of the“witnesses” observe Japanese committing rapes, or looting. When the missionaries
received reports of such crimes from Chinese refugees and rushed to the “crime scene,”
they never found any trace of the “criminals.” The book’s grossly misleading title
notwithstanding, none of these Americans was an eyewitness to Japanese atrocities.
In searching for the reason why these persons came to be viewed as eyewitnesses, I madea shocking discovery. It concerns two of the men listed above, Miner Searle Bates andGeorge A. Fitch. Both of them consistently disseminated accusations of Japanese
atrocities, within China and abroad, from the moment that Nanjing fell.
It turns out that Bates was a paid advisor to the Chinese government, hired by ChiangKai-shek himself. His assignment was producing and publicizing propaganda calling
attention to Japanese atrocities. Bates was decorated twice by Chiang (once during thewar, and again afterwards) for his efforts.1
What about Fitch? In March 1938, after assisting Bates with his propaganda work, Fitch
returned to the US via Hong Kong. Once there, he not only traveled all over the USdelivering anti-Japanese propaganda speeches, but also was instrumental in theestablishment of two large pro-China, anti-Japan organizations (July 1938), serving as an
officer in both of them. 2 The intent of this propaganda, as requested by the Chiang
government, was to convince the American people that Japanese military personnel werecruel and brutal, and to win their sympathy for China. Once they were aligned with China,
Americans would lobby their government to send aid, both financial and material, to the
Chiang government. The propagandists didn’t care whether the information they weredisseminating was true or not. Such stratagems are far from uncommon; they are
deployed all over the world, even today. Furthermore, Americans, who didn’t know muchabout the Japanese at that time (they certainly didn’t know that Bates, Fitch and theirZhang Kaiyuan, ed. Eyewitnesses to Massacre: American Missionaries Bear Witness toJapanese Atrocities in Nanjing (New York: M.E. Sharpe, 1984), xxiii-xxiv.

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colleagues were in the employ of the Chinese government), believed the men’s
protestations.
In this paper I will demonstrate that contrary to its thesis, Eyewitnesses to Massacre
proves definitively that there were no American witnesses to a massacre. Page numbers
following citations preceded by “EM” refer to that book. I will also refer to a map ofNanjing to enhance readers’ understanding. Additionally, I have italicized certain words,
mainly relevant dates, for emphasis.
The International Committee and the Safety Zone
In mid-November 1937, Smythe and Bates, both professors at Nanking University, andothers, including some American missionaries, discussed the idea of establishing a safetyzone to accommodate noncombatants. The committee formed to move that plan forward
was the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone (hereinafter “International
Committee”). John Rabe, a German, was appointed chairman. That process is describedin a letter from W. Plumer Mills to his wife dated January 24, 1938.

With regard to the Safety Zone, we got our inspiration of course from the successof Father Jacquinot’s zone in Shanghai. I have called it his zone, just because hisname was so prominently associated with it. Our first task locally was to clear theidea of such a zone with Chinese and foreign friends, then to discuss it with the
Chinese officials to make sure that we had their support, and finally to take it up
with the Japanese. (EM 245)

Father Robert Jacquinot was a Jesuit priest working in Shanghai. When there were
hostilities between the Japanese and Chinese near the city, he protected the lives andproperty of Chinese civilians by designating a densely populated area of Shanghai near
the French concession as a neutral zone. Although the International Committee in
Nanking too aimed to protect the city’s civilians from danger, they selected a different
type of location. The Safety Zone in Nanjing was not in the southern part of the city,where residents and stores were concentrated. The International Committee chose central
Nanking, which was sparsely populated. Since it was also very close to American andother foreign settlements and businesses, committee members may have wanted toprotect foreign interests as well. A steady stream of Chinese began to flow into the Safety
Zone, an elongated hexagon of land measuring 1.6 kilometers from east to west, and 3.2
kilometers from north to south, about a week before the city fell. Two hundred thousandpeople, the poorest residents of Nanjing, who had nowhere else to go, crowded into 20
camps set up primarily in foreign facilities and public buildings. The refugees broughtwith them just a few possessions and as much food as they could carry. Hardly anyone
remained outside the Safety Zone. Therefore, although its location was not ideal, it
functioned adequately as a safety zone.
When the International Committee requested that Japanese forces refrain from attacking
the Safety Zone, they received the following reply.

5Consul-General Katsuo Okazaki had called on the 16th to tell us that while they could notrecognize us legally, they would deal with us as though they had recognized us1 (EM245).3

Basic Japanese policy was outlined in a letter from Smythe dated January 10, 1938 toJohn M. Allison, a secretary at the US Embassy who had returned to Nanking. In a letterto relatives dated December 20, 1937, Smythe writes that the Japanese kept their promise.
But there were no shells that landed in our Zone on the 12th, so my spot map forthat day was clear. That was one reason we slept so peacefully with shellfire
going on all night! We trusted the Japanese gunners implicitly not to shell theZone. (EM 254)

At this point it would be useful to mention some basic facts about Nanjing. Consulting
the map below, we see that Nanjing is a walled city with an overall length of 34
kilometers. It measures 40 square kilometers in area, covering approximately 70% of theMap of Nanking

1

Hsü Shuhsi, Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone (Shanghai, Kelly & Walsh, 1939), Document

No. 35.

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Map prepared with the aid of Encyclopedia of East Asian History, issued by Heibonsha in 1938

land occupied by Manhattan Island in New York City. There are 13 gates in the city wall,and in the 1930s they provided the only entrée into Nanjing. The Safety Zone covered 3.9
square kilometers, an area equal in size to New York’s Central Park. Before war brokeout in Shanghai, the population of Nanjing was about one million. But when the conflictmoved toward Nanjing, many of the city’s residents fled. According to a report issued by
Wang Gupan, head of the Chinese National Police Force, on November 28, thepopulation had dwindled to 200,000. On December 8 Tang Shengzhi, commander inchief of the Nanjing Defense Forces, issued strict orders to those 200,000 remaining
residents to evacuate to the Safety Zone.4 Moreover, Documents of the Nanking Safety
Zone states that the population of Nanking was 250,000 on January 14, 1938. Needless tosay, these are not circumstances that would permit the massacre of 300,000 Chinese.
First reports of Nanjing’s defeat
When Nanjing fell on December 13 there were five American and British journalists inthe city. However, believing that all communications methods had been disrupted, theyleft Nanjing on December 15, boarding the USS Oahu, a gunboat. One of them,Archibald Steele of the Chicago Daily News, took a report that Bates had sent to the US
Consulate in Shanghai with him.5 That memorandum was sent to the State Department,
and its gist relayed to Tillman Durdin of the New York Times and other journalists. It
was also included in Harold Timperley’s What War Means, albeit without any mentionof Bates, but it is certain that Bates was the writer.6 Articles based on this memorandum
graced these newspapers on December 16 and 17, and served as the first reports ofJapanese atrocities in Nanjing.7
Here is an excerpt from Bates’ memorandum.
Some Pictures from Nanking (Dec. 15, 1937)
At Nanking the Japanese Army has lost much of its reputation, and has thrownaway a remarkable opportunity to gain the respect of the Chinese inhabitants andof foreign opinion. The disgraceful collapse of Chinese authority and the breakup of the Chinese armies in this region left vast numbers of persons ready torespond to the order and organization of which Japan boasts. Many local people
freely expressed their relief when the entry of Japanese troops apparently brought
an end to the strains of war conditions and the immediate perils of bombardment.
At least they were rid of their fears of disorderly Chinese troops, who indeed
passed out without doing severe damage to most parts of the city.
But in two days the whole outlook has been ruined by frequent murder,wholesale and semi-regular looting and uncontrolled disturbance of private
homes including offenses against the security of women. Foreigners who have
traveled over the city report many civilians’ bodies lying in the streets. In theTimperley, Harold J., ed., What War Means: Japanese Terror in China (London: Victor Golanz
Ltd., 1938).

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central portion of Nanking they were counted yesterday as about one to the city
block. A considerable percentage of the dead civilians were the victims ofshooting or bayoneting in the afternoon and evening of the 13th, which was thetime of Japanese entry into the city. Any person who ran in fear or excitement,
and any one who was caught in streets or alleys after dusk by roving patrols was
likely to be killed on the spot. Most of this severity was beyond even theoreticalexcuse. It proceeded in the Safety Zone as well as elsewhere, and many cases areplainly witnessed by foreigners and by reputable Chinese. Some bayonet wounds
were barbarously cruel. (EM 4)

If Bates’ account speaks the truth, then he was the first witness to the “massacre.” Weknow that because he states unequivocally that he and other foreigners witnessed massmurders on December 13 and 14. In that case, did other foreigners witness mass slaughteron those two days?
Smythe’s letters vs. The Rape of Nanking
As secretary of the International Committee, Smythe fulfilled an important role, being
responsible for the issuance of documents bound for Japanese military authorities and theJapanese and American embassies. He toured the Safety Zone and areas south of it, alone,from 6:00 to after 8:00 on the morning of December 13. Smythe wrote a letter stating that
he had noticed no disturbances or chaos there to his family on December 20.
Went over to Ninghai Road by Ginling and found our flags out of place and told
people about it. Found several discarded uniforms in the road, so told people andpolice to carry them out of the Zone. Then back up through Tao Ku Tsuen home.
I did not realize it was 8:15! The gang were thru breakfast; but I ate. They were
glad to know it was so peaceful out. After eating George took me over much thesame road to see some things and we checked up on the Nash, then to Ginling toconsult Minnie. She asked me why I looked so weary, but I told her I wasenjoying it! (EM 255)

The Japanese attack continued until early in the morning of December 13. However,Smythe’s letter tells us that after the city had been occupied and defending Chinese
troops had left, the Safety Zone was perfectly peaceful.
At that point, however, Smythe was not well informed about the horrors that had
unfolded before Nanjing became peaceful, about the flight of Chinese troops from
Zhongshan Road through Yijiang Gate and Xiaguan to the Yangzi River. But note thatduring the afternoon and evening of December 12, before Japanese forces arrived,
thousands of Chinese soldiers were shot, burned to death, or drowned. Even Iris Chang
was unable to ignore those events; she wrote about them in The Rape of Nanking, as
follows:
Not surprisingly, the order to retreat threw the Chinese military into an uproar.
Some officers ran about the city haphazardly informing anyone they came into
contact with to pull out. These soldiers took off. Other officers told no one, noteven their own troops. Instead, they saved their own hides. Their soldiers8continued to fight the Japanese; thinking they were witnessing a mass desertion

when they saw other troops fleeing,
they machine-gunned hundreds oftheir fleeing comrades in an effort
to stop them. In the haste andconfusion to leave the city, at least
one Chinese tank rolled overcountless Chinese soldiers in its
path, stopping only when blown up
by a hand grenade.
Even in the larger, tragic schemeof things, the retreat had its comic
moments. As soldiers grew
desperate to blend into the
populace and thereby elude capture, they broke into shops to steal civilian clothes
and undressed in the open. The streets soon filled not only with half-naked
soldiers but with half-naked police officers, who had discarded their uniforms to
avoid being mistaken as soldiers. One man roamed about wearing nothing but his
underwear and a top hat, probably stolen from the home of a wealthy government
official. In the early stages of the retreat, when a semblance of order remained,
entire sections of the Chinese army were shedding their uniforms, changing into
civilian clothes, and marching in formation, simultaneously. But when the retreat
turned into a rout, the scramble for clothes grew urgent. Soldiers were actuallyseen throwing themselves on pedestrians and ripping clothes off their backs.
There was only one way to get out of the city safely without encountering theJapanese, and that was through the northern harbor to the Yangtze River, where afleet of junks were waiting for those who could get there first. In order to reachthe harbor, soldiers had to first move up the main artery of Chungshan[Zhongshan] Road, and then pass through the northwest gate of the city, called
the Ichang [Yijiang], or Water Gate, before they could enter the northern port
suburb of Hsiakwan [Xiaguan].
As the night progressed, the soldiers focused on getting themselves across andabandoned the tanks and equipment. The scene grew violent as boats grew scarce,
and in the end some ten thousand men would fight over two or three vessels,
struggling to cram themselves aboard or to scare off others by firing shots in the
air. Terrified crews tried to ward off the surging mob by swinging axes down on
the fingers of soldiers who clung to the sides of their junks and sampans.
Innumerable men died trying to cross the river that night. Many never even madeit past the gate. That evening a fire broke out on Chungshan Road, and the flames
swept through heaps of ammunition, engulfing houses and vehicles. Horses
ensnarled in traffic panicked and reared, heightening the confusion of the mob.
The terror-mad soldiers surged forward, their momentum pushing hundreds ofmen into the flames and hundreds more into the tunnel, where they weretrampled underfoot. With the gate blocked and an inferno raging nearby, thesoldiers who could break free from the mob made a wild rush to climb over the9

walls. Hundreds tore their clothing into strips and knotted them with belts andputtees to make rope ladders. One after another, they scaled the battlements andtossed down rifles and machine guns from the parapets. Many fell andplummeted to their deaths.

Since Chang wrote about the disorderly Chinese troops in such detail, readers will realizethat the Japanese were not responsible for the huge number of corpses discovered in theareas mentioned after Nanjing fell. On the contrary, they were the tragic consequences ofa frenzied attempt by Chinese troops, who had lost all discipline, to escape. These
passages also tell us the truth about injured civilians treated at the Gulou Hospital, whoclaimed the Japanese set fire to their homes after the city fell. Furthermore, during thechaos there was not one civilian among the hordes of soldiers. Both Smythe’s letter andChang have made it clear what was happening in and around Nanjing between the nightof December 12 and the morning of December 13.
Now let us refer again to Smythe’s letter of December 20 to see what he wrote about thechanges that had occurred in the Safety Zone, which was peaceful on the morning ofDecember 13, after the Japanese entry into Nanjing. In that letter Smythe mentions
encountering Japanese soldiers for the first time on his way to his residence on Pingcang
Lane to have lunch.
Well on our way home at one we found that the Japanese had reached
Kwangchow [Guangzhou] Road. We drove down there and met a small
detachment of about six Japanese soldiers, our first — but far from our last! (Atthe corner of Shanghai Road and Kwangchow Road, they were searching a bus,
but not harming the people.) (EM 255)

After lunch Smythe went with John
Rabe, chairman of the International
Committee, and a Russian named Cola
who acted as interpreter, to look for ahigh-ranking Japanese officer. Their
mission was threefold: to tell theJapanese about (1) the Safety Zone, (2)the new Red Cross Committee; (3)disarmed Chinese soldiers in the Safety
Zone.
The second item on their agenda
concerned the Red Cross Committee,
headed by John Magee, which wasestablished by the International
Committee with the aim of opening a hospital for wounded Chinese soldiers. Before I
embark on a discussion of the third item, I would like to discuss the circumstances underIris Chang, The Rape of Nanking : The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II (New York:
Penguin, 1998), pp. 76-77.

10which this document was delivered to the Japanese Army on Hanzhong Road near
Xinjiekou. In the same letter Smythe writes:
Sure enough we found a detachment of about 100 men sitting on the south side of
the road, and a large group of Chinese civilians on the opposite side looking atthem. We tried to explain to the officer the Zone and drew it on his map of
Nanking, note it was not on his map. He said the Hospital would be all right if
there was no one in there that shot at the Japanese. About the disarmed soldiers
he could not say. (EM 256)

Thus, as Smythe wrote, the real witnesses to the aftermath of the Battle of Nanjingreported that they were surrounded by people who sensed that the Japanese had nointention of harming the civilian population once they entered the city. Let us compare
Smythe’s account with what Chang writes about witnesses. It is obvious that she did
nothing more than paraphrase Bates’ memorandum.
Eyewitnesses later claimed that the Japanese soldiers, who roamed the city ingroups of six to twelve men, fired at anyone in sight as soon as they entered thecapital. Old men were found face down on the pavement, apparently shot in theback on whim; civilian Chinese corpses lay sprawled on almost every block —many who had done nothing more provocative than run away as the Japaneseapproached.

Chang describes the Japanese soldiers as being equipped with tanks, heavy artillery andtrucks, as though a huge force had entered the city. We can tell from Smythe’s letter that
this was not true.
Now let us consider the disarmed Chinese soldiers in the Safety Zone. The following
passage is from a letter sent by the International Committee to the Japanese military
authorities on December 14.
Yesterday afternoon an unforeseen situation developed when a number ofChinese soldiers were trapped in the northern part of the city. Some of themcame to our office and pleaded in the name of humanity that we save their lives.
Representatives of our Committee tried to find your Headquarters but got nofarther than a captain on Han Chung Lu [Hanzhong Road]. So we disarmed allthese soldiers and put them into buildings in the Zone. We beg your merciful
permission to allow these men to return to peaceful civilian life as is now their
desire.

The disarmed Chinese troops had not surrendered to the Japanese. Therefore, in terms ofinternational law they were not prisoners of war; therefore, they were ineligible to betreated as such. The International Committee pleaded with the Japanese for mercy
precisely because they were aware of this fact. Absent is any mention of the number ofChang, op. cit., p. 82.

Hsü, op. cit., Document No. 1.

11disarmed soldiers in the Safety Zone.
Let us refer again to Smythe’s letter of December 20. Now he describes what he saw after
his encounter with 100 Japanese soldiers at Xinjiekou on his way to International
Committee headquarters.
Chung Shan [Zhongshan] Road was strewn with stuff thrown away by retreatingsoldiers. As we approached Shansi [Shanxi] Road Circle, a sight startled us; acrowd of men in motley attire crowded around an auto were coming around thecorner. We soon found it was Charlie in a car leading a group of disarmed
soldiers to the Law College. They hugged that car! At the circle we met a
detachment of soldiers in arms. We told them to disarm and some of them did.
(…)
At headquarters we found a mob of men outside that Sperling and others had
been disarming. The place was becoming an arsenal! They were marched into thepolice headquarters near us. About 1300 in all, and some still in soldiers clothes.
(EM 256)

Therefore, when Smythe made his tour of the Safety Zone on December 13, his mind wason the subject of disarmed Chinese troops. Since he hadn’t seen any Japanese soldierscommitting murders or rapes, or looting, he wrote nothing to that effect. But according toBates’ memorandum, the Japanese committed atrocities over a two-day period. To
understand why he wrote that, we must address the actual events of December 14.
The Safety Zone on December 14, 1937
I refer again to Smythe’s letter of December 20.
Tuesday morning, the 14th: We all got up and felt the fighting was over. (EM257)

We can assume that Bates was included in the “we,” since the two men were living in thesame house. This means that Bates did not witness the horrific events he described in his
memorandum: “A considerable percentage of the dead civilians were the victims ofshooting or bayoneting in the afternoon and evening of the 13th, which was the time ofJapanese entry into the city.” In other words, Bates’ memorandum was pure propaganda.
Not one American witnessed anything of the sort. If other Americans had been aware of
the horrors described in Bates’ memorandum, they would not have thought the “fighting
was over,” as Smythe did. They would have been worried about the refugees in the
Safety Zone. The men were in a finite area (the walled city of Nanking), and as membersof the International Committee were almost always together. That is why Smythe writes“we” and not “I.” His letter continues, optimistically, as follows:
Now the Japanese were here; would set up an orderly regime and things would berosy. (EM 257)

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One might even think that he was writing from the Japanese perspective. In any case, hedescribed the situation in Nanjing to his family, honestly and openly, because there wasno reason for him to invent a story. Since at that point Bates had already accused theJapanese military of committing atrocities, we have no choice but to presume that his
memorandum was propaganda, and the diametric opposite of the truth. We know for afact that he was an adviser to the Chiang government. It is safe to assume that Bates’
intention was to distort the truth and invent a story that would sully the reputation of theJapanese military in the minds of the American people.
More details about the situation in Nanjing on December 14, 1937 can be found in letters
written by Smythe, Ernest Forster and John Magee, excerpts of which follow.
In Smythe’s letter of December 20, to which I have already referred several times, hedescribes a meeting with a Japanese Embassy staff member, also attended by Rabe andForster.
We ran on to [sic] Fukuda8 at Sing Kai Ko [Xinjiekou]. He is Attaché to theJapanese Embassy.
(…)
He sent us to the Chung Yang Fang Tien [Zhongyang Fandian] to see an officer.
We went up through broken glass and sand to a bedroom and this officer received
us in half dress and a bad beard and a face of iron. He merely replied that theHigh officer had not come. They had made many sacrifices getting to Nanking
and the Chinese had shot the people. That was that! As some one said later,“Holy smoke, these Japanese believe their own propaganda!” (EM 257-8)

When a Japanese officer told Smythe that Chinese troops had killed civilians, the latter
was shocked because such acts contravene Western conventional wisdom. Smythe seems
to have thought he was hearing Japanese propaganda. But previously cited text from The
Rape of Nanking tells us otherwise, i.e., that Chinese troops did indeed kill civilians
during the chaos accompanying the fall of Nanjing. When Smythe, Rabe and Forster met
a Japanese officer, they entrusted a letter requesting clemency for the Chinese troops they
had disarmed, a portion of which is cited above (Document No. 1 in Documents of the
Nanking Safety Zone), to him.
Then the three men toured the business district (outside the Safety Zone). Needless to say,there were no refugees there. Since Forster described the tour in more detail than Smytheor Rabe, let us have a look at some letters he wrote.
Here is an excerpt from a letter to his wife dated December 14:
The city has fallen. We are all safe and are busy looking after the wounded anddestitute. We have organized a committee of the International Red Cross. Don’t
worry! (EM 118)

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In another letter, dated December 15, Forster writes about his tour of Nanjing on
December 14.
Yesterday I was busy all day. Three of us foreigners and a Chinese interpreter
tried to find the highest Japanese officer in the city in order to let him know about
the Safety Zone and the Red Cross Committee. He was living in a hotel near St.
Paul’s Church so we rode around there to see what its condition was. The Church
is intact. Some windows are broken and the door under the tower, but a shell hit
the front gate of the compound and the roof of the parish house at the end where
the main reception room is. The timbers are still there but I did not go inside.
Fortunately it did not burn. (EM 118)

Notice that there is no mention of civilians being pursued and murdered by Japanesemilitary personnel (either inside or outside the Safety Zone).
Forster’s letter continues:
The Safety Zone, while not ideal, has certainly saved the lives of countless
thousands. It was the southern section of the city that got the worst of thebombing and shelling. But yesterday we saw less than 25 corpses on the road wetraversed. The population of the Safety Zone increased tremendously on Sat.,
Sun., and Mon. There must be at least 100,000 people in the area. (EM 119)

Actually, we know from many other accounts that there were, at that point, 200,000
persons in the Safety Zone, twice the number cited by Forster. Particularly noteworthy
here is his reference to “less than 25 corpses on the road.” And those few corpses were
decidedly not those of Chinese killed by the Japanese after the latter entered Nanjing.
Smythe ventured outside with Bates on December 13, before either man encountered any
Japanese soldier. He saw corpses as early as that. About them Smythe writes as follows
in his letter of December 20:
We went down Shanghai Road and found no Japanese soldiers on Kwangchow
Road. Near the Seminary we found a number of dead civilians, about 20, whom
we later learned had been killed by the Japanese because they ran. That was theterrible tale that day. (EM 256)

Nowhere does Smythe mention that he heard shots fired in the Safety Zone. Moreover,none of the Americans claims to have heard shots on December 13. Why, then, did
Smythe believe that the Japanese had shot about 20 civilians? The phrase “we later
learned” reminds us of Bates’ memorandum. It is easy to imagine Bates’ regaling his
housemate with tales like “the Japanese have been killing civilians ever since they
entered the city.” Whatever the case, Smythe did not witness any “terrible murders.”
What did Magee have to say about corpses? Let us examine a letter he wrote to his wife
on December 12, in which he describes traveling around the city to ensure that thewounded brought back from the frontlines were being transported to the hospital.

14

Then yesterday (Saturday, Dec. 11th), I took some wounded soldiers in the Drum
Tower ambulance to a dressing station for wounded soldiers in the Capitol
Theatre. Just before I arrived a large shell had fallen in the street and killed about
11 people. Two motor cars were burning immediately opposite the Capitol
Theatre in front of the Fu Chang Hotel. We took the ambulance and this time
went down a back street also taking the Ford. After passing the University
Middle School and before we arrived at Hua Chung [Hanzhong] Road we saw a
number of dead bodies lying in the road. A house had been hit by a shell andclose to 20 people killed, 7 or 8 of them being hurled into the street. A poor old
couple were simply frantic as their son, aged 33, was lying dead with a huge holein the front of his face. They were simply beside themselves with grief. Greatcrowds were standing around out of curiosity and I told them to leave
immediately and get behind something. The masses in China are certainly
unintelligent about such things. There was danger that another shell might arriveat any moment. (EM 168-9)

The “close to 20” corpses Magee saw
on December 11, must have been thesame ones that Smythe noticed on
December 13. Smythe encountered
Japanese soldiers at Xinjiekou,
further south in the city. Comparing
the accounts written by all three men(Smythe, Forster and Magee), we
realize that Bates’ contention that theJapanese embarked on a campaign ofslaughter the moment they entered
Nanjing is a bald-faced lie.
It is likely that some shells landed in
the Safety Zone, given its location.
But we know that they were stray shells, and that they landed there before the city fell
from a letter sent by the International Committee to the Japanese commanding officer.
December 14, 1937
Honorable Sir:
We come to thank you for the fine way your artillery spared the Safety Zone andto establish contact with you for future plans for care of Chinese civilians in theZone.

How did Magee describe the situation in Nanjing? In a letter to his wife dated December
15 he writes about his attempts on December 14 to transport wounded Chinese troops
from a field hospital to the Foreign Ministry.


Hsü, op. cit., Document No. 1.

15

The next morning I took an ambulance full of wounded soldiers to the Ministryof Foreign Affairs. When we had just succeeded in helping up the steps those
who were able to walk (some had to be taken on stretchers) along came a squadof Japanese soldiers some of whom were like wild beasts. I was helping a poor
fellow who was coming along most painfully but a soldier grabbed him from me
and began to jerk his wounded arms terribly and tied his hands together and also
the hands of another wounded man. Fortunately I found a Japanese medical
officer who came about that time and pointed to the bloody clothes of these men.
He spoke in German and I said in poor German that this was a hospital forwounded soldiers and he made the soldiers release them.
(…)
I then found a decent Colonel who spoke English and told him I wanted to go toheadquarters to get permission to tend to the wounded soldiers and he sent me
and the young Russian to headquarters in our ambulance (borrowed from the Red
Swastika Society). We went to the Central Hotel west of the officers Moral
Endeavor and saw a small man with a pointed head and heavy beard. I said
through Cola that there were many wounded soldiers in the Ministry of War and I
wanted permission to move them to the Ministry of F.A. He went back into an
inner room where the highest officer in the city was located and then said that I
must wait several days. I said they have not been tended to for days and did noteven have anyone to bring them water and he said we must wait. We went away
in disappointment. I returned to the headquarters of our Neutral Zone Committee
and there found a number of wounded soldiers and took two loads of them to the
Wounded Soldiers’ Hospital at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Each time I had
difficulty with the soldiers. Some high staff officers we met in a car were afraid I
was carrying wounded soldiers away but I told him we wanted to bring them in,
not take them away. They gave us permission to bring one more load. (EM 1701)

There are two reasons forincludingthesedetailed
passages
about
Magee’s
activities. First, they show that
his thoughts were focused on
the wounded soldiers, whichmeans that during his travels
around the Safety Zone he
was not conscious of refugees’
being persecuted by theJapanese. The same was trueof Smythe and Forster. That
none of the men refers toJapanese atrocities (which,accordingtoBates’
memorandum,
escalated
during the two-day period

16after the Japanese entry into Nanjing) is proof that there were no atrocities.
Second, the hospital to which Magee transported wounded Chinese soldiers wasprotected by Japanese military personnel. This is a crucially important fact, because it
proves that the Japanese were not killing wounded soldiers on that occasion. A month
later, on January 11, 1938, Magee wrote the following to his wife:
I have heard from doctors and nurses in the International Red Cross Hospital forwounded soldiers at the Ministry of Foreign affairs that they have been protected,
both men and women, although none of us foreigners have been allowed to enter
since Dec 14th when I took three truck loads of wounded soldiers there. (EM 189)

As Forster writes in a letter to his wife dated December 14, the Japanese had taken
control of the hospital. It made perfect sense for them to do so because of the possibility
that Nanking Defense Force stragglers were hiding there.
We decided to concentrate on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as a Red Cross
Hosp. for the wounded, but yesterday the Japanese took it over and will let nonein or out. We can only pray for the fate of those inside. (EM 119)

But as Magee states, the Japanese protected the wounded Chinese soldiers. Here isanother fact that proves that the massacre argument is complete fiction.9
Now we come to Minnie Vautrin. In an entry in her diary, she writes that on at 4:30 p.m.
on December 14 she got into Mills’ car and rode with him, traveling outside the Safety
Zone to the Hanxi (Shuixi) Gate in the southern part of Nanjing to check on some
Chinese Christians. She discovered that nothing in their homes had been disturbed. On
the way home she saw only one dead body on the street near Hillcrest School across from
Shanghai Road (inside the Safety Zone). Vautrin was surprised that there weren’t moredead bodies, since shelling in the area had been intense during the hostilities thatpreceded the fall of Nanjing. The drive lasted several hours, but at no time did she see
Japanese military personnel committing acts of violence. Then who were the foreign
witnesses to which Bates refers, and where were they? Here, again, is further proof thatsince there was absolutely no contact between Japanese soldiers and Chinese civilians for
those two days, the accusations in Bates’ memorandum are pure propaganda.
The three days following the fall of Nanjing
On the afternoon of December 15 five foreign journalists took their leave of Nanjing.
Referring to a memorandum handed to them by Bates, they wrote articles stating thatJapanese soldiers had devastated the city of Nanjing. However, they wrote only about
driving over piles of corpses as they departed from Nanjing by car. They did not say thatthey had seen Japanese military personnel murdering or committing violent acts against

Hu Hua-ling, ed., The Undaunted Women of Nanking: The Wartime Diaries of Minnie Vautrin
and Tsen Shi-fang (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 2010), p. 36.

17

civilians. As described in the foregoing citation from The Rape of Nanking, the bodies thereporters saw in the streets on their way to the Yangzi River were not those of civilians
killed by the Japanese, but Chinese soldiers who were shot by their own comrades during
the chaos that followed their defeat, or who died when engulfed in conflagrations.
Moreover, the document sent by the International Committee to Japanese authorities on
December 15 makes no mention whatsoever of Japanese atrocities. Rather than referringto that document, let us have a look at a letter Smythe (the author of that document) wrote
to his family.
Wednesday morning, Dec. 15th, armed with that new appeal for the disarmed
soldiers on the basis of humanity and recognizing the laws of war (both ways!)
we were going to see the high man when he came. But before the letter was
finished, Fukuda called at our Headquarter [sic] to find out what the Zone was!
We gave him copies of all the documents and answered his questions about
population, food supply, etc. (EM 258-9)

Obviously, the International Committee’s main concern was the disposition of Chinese
soldiers whom they had disarmed. They answered questions from Japanese Embassy staff
member Fukuda Tokuyasu about the refugees. They did not mention Japanese atrocities
because they were not aware of any.
At a meeting held at noon on December 15 with a representative of the Special Service
Corps, Smythe uttered not one word about Japanese atrocities. Here is another excerpt
from the same letter.

Meanwhile, Swen, our interpreter from the Red Swastika, a 60 year old former
secretary in the Japanese Embassy here, had arranged for us to meet the head of
the Special Service Corps who was to arrived [sic] that day at noon. So we
dashed down there, and Fukuda was with him to translate.
(…)
The Chief of the Special Service Corps told us they must search the city for
Chinese soldiers; would post guards at entrances to Zone; people should returnhome as soon as possible; trust humanitarian attitude of Japanese Army to carefor the disarmed Chinese soldiers; police might patrol within the Zone if armed
only with batons; 10,000 tan of rice we had stored in the Zone could be used by
us for refugees; telephone, telegraph, and water must be repaired, so he would gowith Rabe to inspect; asked us to assist in getting 100-200 workers for the next
day — will pay; will inspect rice locations and guard. (EM 259)

The letter ends with Smythe’s expressing disappointment that the 1,300 Chinese
stragglers whom he had disarmed on December 13 were apprehended and taken away by
the Japanese. We must remember that Chinese troops had shed their uniforms andinfiltrated the Safety Zone. As the occupying forces, the Japanese would have beenremiss had they not searched for and apprehended them. Smythe and other Americans

18referred to them as “disarmed soldiers,” never as “prisoners of war.” The Americans
might have heard rumors that those soldiers were executed, but they never verified thoserumors.
War ends, but Bates’ lies continue
In his memorandum, Bates writes that countless civilians fell prey to Japanese brutality
for two days after the Chinese defeat in Nanjing. However, as I have shown above,
accounts written by Smythe, Forster, Magee and Vautrin (in fact, by every American
except Bates) describing that same period fail to mention the witnessing of Japanese
atrocities. Now I would like to introduce two more documents that further describe thesituation in Nanjing.
The first is a written statement submitted to a military tribunal held by the Nationalist
government in Nanjing in 1947.
Careful checking of the reports of members and staff of the International Safety
Zone Committee and of the burial records of Red Swastika Society which theInternational Committee financed and inspected in its burial work, convinced methat a low and incomplete figure for civilian deaths — men, women, and children— inflicted by the Japanese in the first few weeks of their occupation of Nanking,was 12,000; and for deaths of unarmed men in military clothing, 35,000. Of thesemurders, over 90 per cent occurred in the first ten days, most of all in the first
three days. There certainly were more killings than these, but their circumstances
lie outside of my knowledge, and therefore I do not estimate their number.
(Signed) M. S. Bates
Nanking
February 6, 1947

According to this statement, the Japanese killed approximately 30,000 Chinese soldiersand civilians between December 13 and 15. However, as accounts written by three other
Americans testify, these accusations are totally spurious.
The second is a letter written by W. Plumer Mills to his wife, dated January 24, 1938.
Of course we all thought and expected that the Zone would have gone out of
operation long ago, but as I wrote you on the 22nd, the Zone has proven far more
useful after the occupation than it was before. It did give some protection during
the fighting, because it proved a haven of refuge especially to the people in theKasahara Tokushi, ed., Nankin jiken shiryoshu 1: Chugoku kankei shiryo hen 2 [Nanking
Incident source material: Vol. 2, Chinese references], trans. Nankin Jiken Chosa Kenkyukai hen [Nanking
Incident Research Group] (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1992).

19

southern and southeastern sections of the city and in the suburbs, where theheaviest fighting took place. But the chief usefulness of the Zone has been in themeasure of protection it has afforded to the people since the occupation. I wish
you could have seen the way people flocked into the Zone during the early daysof December, and I wish you could see Shanghai Road and Ninghai Road now.
These two are now the principal business streets of Nanking. Formerly these used
to be Tai Ping Lu and Chung Hua Lu [Zhonghua Road], the old Fund Dung Giai
[Fudong Street], but those streets are now largely burned out, and instead theformerly more or less little used Shanghai Road up past Hillcrest and theAmerican Embassy, and Ninghai Road in the new residential district, also
formerly little used, are now the principal streets. Shanghai Road is now so
crowded that one can hardly get through it in a motor car. This change is all amatter of the last few weeks. The reason is simply that the people are here in theZone, and because by now some sort of order has been established, so that there
is no longer the universal plundering and robbing that there used to be, the people
now have more confidence than they had before and have begun to come out
again on the streets. They have set up scores of temporary shops by the side of
the road and business is brisk in these — all of course on a small scale and all
within the Zone. Outside of the Zone there is no business at all. (EM 246)

This letter testifies to the fact that
the Safety Zone continued to be
useful even after the Japanese had
occupied Nanjing. It also describes
the center of the zone as a vibrant,
bustling place that attracted
throngs of refugees, theirconfidence restored. Though thebusinesses were small, they were
prospering. If the Japanese had
stormed the Safety Zone, and as
Bates claimed, slaughtered 15% of
its population, would Mills havewritten what he did? It is patently
obvious that what Bates wrote wascomplete fiction, bearing noresemblance to the true situation in Nanjing and the Safety Zone. Bates’ accounts amountto no more than a string of lies.
Vautrin witnessed no rapes
Now let us examine “atrocities,” a word that graces the subtitle of Eyewitnesses to
Massacre. Perhaps the atrocity that stands out the most because it is mentioned so often isrape. In films about Nanjing produced in China and the US, viewers are sure to see
unbearably long segments featuring the invasion of Ginling Women’s College, where
only female refugees were housed (more than 10,000 of them) by Japanese soldiers, whothen proceed to rape a great many of the women. Scenes depicting bestial Japanese

20

soldiers capturing women trying desperately to escape and raping them on December 17
trigger extreme hatred of the Japanese and Japan. If those scenes are without factual basis,the films’ producers have unconscionably and unforgivably humiliated Japanese military
personnel.
According to Vautrin’s diary, Japanese military personnel did search the premises of
Ginling Women’s College on December 16, because of suspicions that Chinese soldiers
were hiding there. However, at that time no soldier behaved in an untoward manner. She
mentions that on December 17, in the middle of the night, a band of men callingthemselves Japanese soldiers came into the building under the cover of night and took six
young girls away with them. At that time a school employee named Chen was also taken
away. However, all of them returned safely by the next morning. Here is the report
Vautrin submitted to the administration of the college.
Between nine and ten o’clock through a side gate they took off twelve womenand girls and the officer at the gate with us took of Mr. Chen. It was not until
they were gone that we realized that the trick was to take off girls. I did not
expect to see Mr. Chen again for I was sure that he would be shot or bayoneted.
That closing scene I shall never, never forget. Mary, Mrs. Tsen and I standing
near the gate, the servants kneeling just back of us, Mr. Chen being led out by theofficer and a few soldiers. The rusting [sic] of the fallen leaves, the shadows
passing out the side gate in the distance — of whom we did not know, the low
cries of those passing out. Mr. Chen was released at the intersection of Shanghai
and Canton Roads, and six of the girls came back at five the next morningunharmed — both of these we believe were wrought by prayer. (EM 336)

Vautrin writes that 12 women and girls were taken away, but the correct number was six,and all of them returned safely. (Vautrin did not seem to be worried about the other six,perhaps because she realized that only six had been taken away.) However, the brutal actsof “Japanese soldiers” observed by Smythe on the night of December 17, when he visited
Ginling Women’s College upon an invitation extended, was perceived as horrific enoughto be reenacted in films.
But the incident that occurred on the night of December 17 seems suspiciously likesomething the Americans orchestrated to indicate the violent behavior of Japanesesoldiers. If Japanese soldiers had actually committed so many rapes, would Vautrin havewritten a report like the following after the fact?
The poorer people are still being deprived of bedding and money, even coppers
being taken now, and houses of the former well-to-do people, which were fairly
safe in the Safety Zone, are now being deprived of rugs and radios and furniture.
We do not see the wholesale burning of houses which took place from about
December 17th to January 17th — it was on that date that I saw the last fire. The
most distressing thing that now exists is the continued looting by the “lao beh
sing,” the common people. With no law and order in the city the poor and thelawless felt perfectly free to go into any house and take from it anything they
wished. Outside of the former Safety Zone, many houses have been robbed ofeverything, even including doors and windows and floors. Within the last few

21

days I have seen very good doors and windows for sale and that means that thedemolishing process is still going on. Naturally our Chinese friends are distressedby this but there is nothing they can do about it. (EM 346)(…)
During this period of lawlessness in the city our campus has been fairly peaceful.
At no time have “the people” come to loot or steal. Our soldier guard left us on
January 14 and never returned. For many days we were fearful lest somethingshould happen, but nothing beyond our control did happen to us. Three times
soldiers came on mischief bent but were persuaded to go on their way. My
calendar shows that military callers ranking from high official to soldiers
numbered seventeen groups. Most of them came to see the campus and the camp.
We usually show them one or two buildings occupied by refugees first and thentake them to the Administration-Library Building which now looks quite normal
and is open for inspection. They are always pleased to see it and we are glad toshow them a clean building. (EM 347)

By “this period” Vautrin means January 14 through March 31, dates that appear at the
beginning of her report. The campus was obviously peaceful during that time. We also
know from these passages that it was “the people,” meaning the refugees, who were
doing the looting. And since Japanese soldiers committed no murders and no rapes, I feeljustified in discounting Bates’ “testimony.”
How the Japanese segregated combatants from civilians
Next I would like to cite Vautrin’s records again to show how very far removed fromreality Bates’ charges were.
When the Japanese occupied Nanjing, they found not only massive amounts of weapons
and ammunition, but also a great number of uniforms that Chinese troops had discarded.
Some of those soldiers even killed refugees for their clothing, and then slipped into the
Safety Zone. The Americans there, who had never seen such events during a war, wereshocked. But the Japanese had no time to be shocked; to preserve order in the Safety
Zone, it was vital that they ferret out Chinese troops who had shed their uniforms. To that
end, they decided to register all refugees in the Safety Zone, and during that process,segregate soldiers masquerading as civilians. The Japanese called this procedure“separating combatants from civilians.” I refer to a letter Smythe wrote to his family on
December 22.
The special service corps of the Military Police were up to see Rabe this morning,to say they were going to register all the population. He thought it also included
a committee they have for the Safety Zone. So we had some hopes it might mean
the beginning of their assuming some administrative responsibility for the city.
But so far only orders for registration of “peaceful citizens” and thereafter you
can only continue to live in Nanking if you have your registration card! (EM 267)

Here we have proof that by separating combatants from civilians, the Japanese were22

attempting to protect the refugees from being attacked by stragglers disguised as civilians,
who had infiltrated the Safety Zone. Bates, however, in a shocking move, transformed
this prudent process to the wholesale killing of refugees.
Again, I refer to Vautrin’s report.
The Period of Registration: The registration of the people living in Nanking
began at the University of Nanking on December 26 and lasted through the 27.
All the men and women who were refugees on the main campus of the University
registered during those days. (EM 337)

And Smythe describes the registration process on December 26 in a letter dated
December 27.
During the afternoon there was not a great deal to do at the office. Trucks wereinterfered with because coolies could not work until registered and I suppose thesame will be true today. But after people once pass the bugbear of registeration[sic] they feel much relieved. So far reports of any large numbers being taken off
as soldiers, about 20 from the Middle School [MS]. (EM 276)

We see that Smythe thought 20 men had been taken from the middle school. But he also
describes the situation at Nanking University, where the majority of the refugees wereaccommodated. On this occasion Bates and Sone (another American missionary) werealso present. One Chinese male was apprehended but then released. Not one man was
taken away by the Japanese. Next we have a letter written by Smythe on December 27.
At supper Searle said he had better stay with it until the registration was finished.
They did the men yesterday; first by volunteer process above, then herding themaround and asking if anyone would guarantee this man, and all passed but one.
Then Searle and Sone guaranteed him. Today were registering the women more
rapidly, and tomorrow will get to private houses. (EM 278)

Then what was the situation at Ginling Women’s College? Vautrin’s report to the college
administrators is very detailed.
Our registration started on December 28 and by inference we thought it was to beof the women living on our campus. That was not our fate, however. It lasted fornine long days and men and women came from all sections of the Safety Zone
and even from the country. Tens of thousands came in four abreast, listened firstto the lecture on good citizenship and then got the preliminary slip which enabled
them to go to one of Mr. Chen Chung-fang’s residences for the final step atwhich they were given a stamped and numbered registration blank with theirname upon it. For the first few days it was limited to men. They formed in lineout on Hankow Road and Ninghai Road as early as two o’clock in the morningand all day long they marched through the campus. It had snowed and you canimagine the amount of mud that these tramping feet brought in. This registration
at first took place under the military officers. Two guards of soldiers came eachtime and each group had to have a blazing bonfire and for the officers wefurnished two coal ball fires. At first I thought that it would be better to protest

23this registration of men on our campus for this meant flinging our front gateswide open, and for the sake of the women we had been so careful to exclude
stray men from coming in. However at the end of the first day it seemed best toendure the process for when men were selected out of marching lines andaccused of being soldiers, their women folk were usually present and could plead
for them and thus many innocent men were saved. Although in theannouncement the men were clearly told that if they would confess to having
served as soldiers they would be pardoned and given remunerative work to do,
we are not sure that the promise was kept but we rather suspect that their bodies
are in the large mounds of unburied bodies outside of Han Chung Gate which weknow were brought there about that time. Finally only 28 men were taken fromthe tens of thousands that registered at Ginling. I shall never forget how
anxiously the women watched this process of registration and how bravely theywould plead for their husbands and sons. Although the registration of women
began on Monday, January 3 yet it did not take place solely for them until
Wednesday of that week and closed on Friday. How they feared the roughtreatment of the soldiers, and how they cringed as they passed them to get the
preliminary blank. A number of women were suspected of being prostitutes —and it was at that time that they were trying to start up the licensed houses in thecity for Japanese soldiers — but each time when the women could be identified
they were released. During the last two days of registration of women it was put
under the civil officials and was carried on in a decent and orderly way. All thewriting was done by Chinese men and the entire process was carried on in our
main quadrangle. I was given permission to bring our group of workers, bothstaff members and amahs, out in a group and the registration was quickly
finished — and thus an ordeal which they had been dreading was passed. (EM337-8)

According to Vautrin’s report, the registration of tens of thousands of men and women
may have been an ordeal for the refugees. But few problems arose, and the process took
place without incident. Only 28 men were taken away by the Japanese (one in several
thousand). But since Vautrin put the rumor that the bodies of the many men who weretaken away were left outside near Hanzhong Gate in writing, some explanation isnecessary.
A search for the source of this rumor leads to none other than Miner Searle Bates, whoclaims to have heard it from a man who narrowly escaped execution.
Here is what Smythe writes in a letter dated December 27.
During the registration process at UN yesterday, they had over 200 men
volunteer that they had either been soldiers or military laborers (term used not
clearly distinguished for forced civilian labor) on the promise that if they
volunteered they would be allowed to work, instead of being shot as they would
if they did not confess. This morning a man came to the University with fivebayonet wounds and said the group of them were marched out to Ku Ling Sze[Gulin Temple] and there used for bayonet practice by 130 Japanese soldiers. He
fainted from his wounds, and when he awoke the Japanese had left, so he madehis way back. Wilson thinks one wound is so serious he will not live. That was
our diet for lunch this noon when we all reported! (EM 278)

24

Thus we see that this is a rumor that Bates relayed to Smythe and others at lunch on
December 27. We know this because it is completely different from the content ofSmythe’s December 26 letter, in which he makes no mention of a great many men being
taken away by the Japanese.
The point Bates wished to make can be found in his report issued on January 25, 1938. It
appears in Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone. The beginning of this lengthy
document contains information identical to that in Smythe’s letter of December 27 about
all Chinese males having been freed after Bates and Sone guaranteed the last one, when
no one else would vouch for him. Then Bates launches into a diatribe about the Japanesemilitary police abducting and slaughtering civilians. But he did not witness any crime. He
is simply reporting what he heard from a Chinese who escaped with his life. Here is anexcerpt from that report.
Meanwhile another element had been introduced. Two additional officers, withhigher status at least for this particular job, came in for inspection. One of themwas violent in his dissatisfaction with what had been done. This man had shown
gross roughness and stupidity during a visit to the University on the previous day,and we were often to encounter his evil doings and coarse methods as head of themilitary police for this district. Toward five o’clock in the afternoon, the 200 or
300 men were taken away in two groups by military police.

Bates has inserted into a factual record a story about how two officers from the military
police took away 200-300 Chinese males. Note that he does not say that 200 men
volunteered. Here again, he is the only American who writes about such an incident.
Bates’ tale continues, relating events of December 27.
Next morning there came to the University Hospital a man with five bayonet
wounds. On two occasions this man reported with fair clarity that he had been a
refugee in the Library, but was not present at the tennis courts; he was picked up
on the street and added to a group that did come from the courts. That evening
somewhere to the west, about 130 Japanese soldiers killed most of 500 similar
captives with bayonet thrusts. The victim recovered himself to find the Japanesegone, and managed to crawl back during the night. He was not familiar with thispart of Nanking, and was vague as to places. Also on the morning of the 27 th
there was brought to me a man who said that he was one of 30 or 40 who had
escaped the death met by most of the 200 to 300 taken away the previous
evening.

Later Bates regales us at great length with more stories about men who returned to theuniversity after narrowly escaping being murdered by Japanese soldiers. But now the
duplicity of his “reports” is obvious.


Ibid., Document No. 50.



Ibid.

25

To the account of this man and his testimony must be added two items. A
responsible worker in the Chinese Red Cross requested us to go outside of Han
Chung Men [Hanzhong Gate] to inspect a large number of bodies there. Mr.
Kroeger of the International Committee told me that he had observed thesebodies himself, in the course of an early venture outside the gate, but that they
could not be seen from the City Wall. The gate is now closed.

Hanzhong Gate is near the place
where the “victims” taken awayby the Japanese were supposedly
killed. Bates writes that Kroeger,a German national and a memberof the International Committee,
reported having seen numerous
bodies outside the gate, which
couldn’t be seen from the citywall. We have no more
information about the identity of
the Chinese Red Cross worker.
But I feel obligated to point out
Bates’ clever, subtle artifice. It
was in actuality not Kroeger who
attempted to see the corpses from
Hanzhong Gate, but Smythe andBates himself. We know that this is so from a letter Smythe wrote to his wife dated
January 1. On that day, Smythe surveyed the city of Nanjing from the Drum Tower, thehighest point in the Safety Zone. He estimated that about 10% of the city had burned, andthen adds that he climbed the wall of Hanzhong Gate (also known as Hanxi Gate). Let us
read this carefully.
After our tower expedition and noting the way the refugees were enjoying thewarm sunny day, boys turning cartwheels on the Univ. campus, etc., Searle and I
took a walk back of Ginling to see if we could find any of the heaps of bodies ofmen shot this week. We went over by that temple “Kuling Sze [Gulin Temple],”… down through the valleys to the south, searched every pond, but did not findany bodies except the charred ones back of Ginling that Searle found a few days
ago — after the burning incident. We found the garden plots over there less thanhalf used up, but every farm house was deserted. Only a few were back loadingup pei Tsai [Chinese cabbage] to carry over and sell. Not a house outside of theZone was occupied, not even on the west side of Sikang [Xikang] Road. Then we
went on south by Tsing Lian Shan [Qingliangshan] and on to the new gate at
Hansimen [Hanxi Gate]. (EM 286)

Here we are told how the refugees are enjoying the New Year holiday peacefully andcalmly, with no reference whatsoever to Japanese atrocities. Contrary to Vautrin’s fears,


Ibid.

26

inspired by rumors that there were a great many bodies at Gulin Temple, there were nobodies there. This discrepancy alone would seem to discredit Bates’ tale of hearing about
them from a man who escaped from the murderous Japanese. Subsequently, both Smythe
and Bates walked around outside the Safety Zone and saw houses and fields that had
been burned. But they did not encounter any corpses. The two men returned to Hanxi
Gate and climbed up the wall there. Then, to sum up their tour, Smythe wrote thefollowing:
The net result of our tour was that the situation regarding piles of bodies is lessserious and therefore a more favorable result. As far as opportunities for people
to go to their homes outside of the Zone, the outlook is still very dark. (Half ofthe houses were burned outside Hansimen [Hanxi Gate]. We went up on the wall
there and looked down on the ruins. That done by the Chinese before theJapanese entered the city. (EM 286)

Thus, according to Smythe’s letter, it was he and Bates who climbed up the wall near
Hanxi Gate, not Kroeger. What they saw at the time was an expanse of burned ruins
outside the city walls, the result of fires set by Chinese troops.
Here is another excerpt of great interest from a letter Smythe wrote to his wife on New
Year’s Eve, the last day of 1937.
The most serious aspect of the situation, and one for which we can see noadequate solution quickly, is that there is no economic basis of life for thiscommunity of 200,000. If they go [on] buying rice from the Japanese Army, thenthe money in the community will be drained out, and no return. The only returnservice is the food which most of the coolies that go out to work for JapaneseArmy men, not in great numbers yet, the very few that get any pay, and the few
men now employed at the Water and Electric Light Works. The only otherincome will be what farmers can raise from the ground. Or what people can findor loot from other areas in the city! (EM 282)(…)
However, it is remarkable how well the little street venders along the road keep
at it. Little to risk, all to gain, so they daily ply their trade. And what a variety of
stuff. We now suspect some of it is looted from areas outside of the Zone whereburning has been going on, but anything the people can get in now is all to the
good! (EM 283)

Two weeks after the fall of Nanjing, Smythe’s thoughts were focused on the bleak
economic outlook for the refugees once they returned to their homes. Nowhere in any of
his letters does he write anything about the mass slaughter of refugees crowded into the
Safety Zone. Smythe does not profess that he witnessed even one murder. Clearly, he was
not “an eyewitness to massacre.”
Still, testifying at the IMTFE in Tokyo on July 29, 1946, Bates repeatedly emphasized
the brutality of Japanese soldiers.

27

As I have demonstrated by comparing his claims with accounts written by Smythe, Mills,
and Vautrin, Bates lied on the witness stand. Here are some examples, taken from thestenographer’s record of the IMTFE proceedings.
1. Twelve thousand men, women and children were murdered in and near the Safety
Zone.
2. Seventy hours after a large group of Chinese soldiers surrendered right outside
Nanjing, and were disarmed, they were all shot with machine guns.
3. For three weeks Japanese commissioned and non-commissioned officers
infiltrated the Safety Zone on a regular basis. There they searched through themultitude of refugees, apprehending men suspected of having been soldiers,
whom they led away and killed.
4. Japanese soldiers made the rounds of the city every night, looking for women to
rape; 8,000 women fell victim to them.
5. These horrific attacks continued for nearly three weeks; they intensified later,
persisting for six to seven weeks.
6. For six to seven weeks after Nanjing was occupied, Japanese soldiers looted
almost every building in the city. For instance, when someone (unnamed) took
advantage of the opportunity to recover his piano, he saw 200 stolen pianos in asingle warehouse.
7. Bates saw on three or four occasions high-ranking officers watching withamusement while their inferiors murdered, shot or raped civilians.
I trust I have amply demonstrated that previously cited accounts kept by Americans
residing in Nanjing (the true witnesses) thoroughly discredit the accusations listed above.
Compared with Bates’ malicious “eyewitness reports,” a sworn affidavit submitted by
Smythe to the IMTFE stated only that he relayed incoming reports of crimes committed
by Japanese soldiers on a daily basis to the Japanese and American embassies.
We filed nearly two protests every day for the first six weeks of the Japanese
occupation. Usually one of these was taken to the Japanese Embassy by Mr.
Rabe and myself in person; the other was sent by messenger.

Smythe never said that he had witnessed any crimes. When we wonder why Bates
continued to bear false witness even after Japan was defeated, we need only recall his
status as advisor to the Chiang government. It is safe to consider his deceptions at least
the remote cause of the fantastic but empty phrase “eyewitnesses to the Nanking
massacre.”
Even in the aftermath of the terrible disaster that visited Japan this year — a megathrust

IMTFE, Transcripts of Proceedings in Open Session, pp. 2624-2675.



Ibid.

28

earthquake followed by a tsunami —the residents of the affected area, some of whom lost
absolutely everything, never stooped to looting. Instead, they behaved in an orderly
manner, and did their best to help each other. Their patience and stoicism became
imprinted on the world’s collective consciousness. It is absurd to think, even for a
moment, that the fathers and grandfathers of these disaster victims committed atrocities
against defenseless refugees in Nanjing, also victims of a disaster.
Conclusion
I have nearly completed my explanation of the situation in Nanjing in late 1937 and early
1938 from the perspectives of the true witnesses: Smythe, Forster, Mills, Magee andVautrin. The current debate concerning the events that took place, providing one assumes
that Japanese military personnel did commit atrocities there, pits the PRC (which claims
that the Japanese killed 300,000-400,000) against Japan (which asserts that the number ofcivilians killed was negligible). However, a careful analysis of contemporaneous records
kept by Smythe and other Americans unequivocally contradict the propaganda, which
emanated from Bates. I believe I have convinced readers that virtually no refugees were
killed or raped by Japanese soldiers. The argument that there was a massacre that claimed
300,000 victims is a monstrous lie, and therefore not worthy of debate. However, inclosing, I would like to discuss how the monstrous lie came to be viewed as the truth.
The number 300,000 made its first appearance in this context in 1938, in a book edited by
one Harold Timperley. Here is some of the copy from the title page.
WHAT WAR MEANS
THE JAPANESE TERROR IN CHINA
A Documentary Record
Compiled and Edited
by
H. J. Timperley
China Correspondent, Manchester Guardian

And here are the first few lines of text.
At least 300,000 Chinese military casualties for the Central China campaignalone and a like number of civilian casualites [sic] were suffered.

Timperley 10 was an Australian who practiced the art of journalism in Manchuria andChina. When Nanjing fell he was in Shanghai, working as a correspondent for the
Manchester Guardian. In January 1938 Timperley traveled to Hankou upon an invitationfrom W.H. Donald, a compatriot serving as advisor to Chiang Kai-shek. In Hankou
Timperley received funds earmarked for the production of anti-Japanese propaganda. As
soon as he returned to Shanghai, he set to work. The book Timperley wrote in his
capacity as agent provocateur for the Chiang government was What War Means. It was
based on letters and telegrams from Bates and Fitch in Nanjing, as well as documents

29issued by the International Committee, and intended to serve as propaganda
demonstrating the brutality of Japanese soldiers. Therefore, we now know that its content,
far from being substantiated fact, was pure propaganda. Iris Chang relied heavily on
Timperley’s book.
Timperley was the first to broach the figure of 300,000 victims (dead or wounded
Chinese troops and civilians). But he was not referring to casualties in Nanjing, but in an
extensive war zone, i.e., central China. Furthermore, he offered no factual basis for his
claims, nor did he do any research designed to arrive at them. It is very likely that
Timperley simply invented the number. Readers who are not familiar with the Chinese
language may be interested to learn that the number three is often used in China to mean
“many.” Perhaps Timperley chose it for that reason. He may have thought that for his
purposes 30,000 was too few, and three million too many. At the IMTFE prosecutors
referred often to What War Means, the source of the accusation that Japanese military
personnel slaughtered 300,000 Chinese. But because this figure was a concoction, it
became dormant after the IMTFE ended, not rearing its ugly head again until the 1970s,
when the Chinese resurrected it. Armed with this knowledge, we can see howmeaningless it is. Nevertheless, the number 300,000 is engraved in huge numerals on theroof of the Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall.
Most Americans have seen coverage of the New York or Chicago marathon on television.
Three hundred thousand is many times the number of participating runners. It is
incredible that in this, the 21st century, the PRC considers justifiable its contention that
the Japanese murdered a great number of people (many times the number of runners whocompletely cover bridges and roads for several hundred meters right after the beginningof a marathon), and that within a short period of time, and then buried their bodies ordumped them in the Yangzi River. The Chinese also continue to issue propaganda
documents and films. This is behavior that makes one wish they would take a long, hardlook at a marathon.
I hope I have managed to convince those who have had the patience to read this far that
there are huge discrepancies between accusations that the Japanese killed 300,000 in
Nanjing and the events actually experienced by Americans, and that the massacre tale
was spun for propaganda purposes. Two of the nine Americans remaining in Nanjing(there were 25 foreigners in all), Bates and Fitch conspired to manufacture propaganda assoon as Nanjing fell. The other Americans, whose only other source of information washearsay, believed them. Then Bates’ argument began to balloon. I have already stated that
Fitch was an activist who established a pro-Chinese, anti-Japanese organization (see Note2), but will add here that Fitch’s wife Geraldine was a friend of Chiang’s wife, Soong
Mei-ling. Bates and Fitch sent copy to Timperley, who was in the process of publishing
What War Means. Those three men launched the notion of the Nanjing “massacre” outinto the world. Their efforts notwithstanding, there is no evidence indicating that thebook enjoyed wide circulation. Prosecutors at the IMTFE made use of it, but it thendisappeared until the 1970s, when the PRC used it as a political tool. This fact alone
constitutes proof that the Nanjing massacre was fabricated, and that there were, of course,
no eyewitnesses to a massacre.

30

In conclusion, I would like to introduce two Chinese references (submitted to the IMTFE
by the prosecution). They are, to the best of my knowledge, unknown to anyone otherthan Japanese scholars. The first is from a report from an exhaustive investigation
conducted by the prosecution into the “massacre” perpetrated by Japanese military
personnel.
During this time, however, the Japanese had put so much effort to deceive
and interrupt the investigations, that it depressed the general public. Not only
were the number of people reporting the Japanese crimes extremely few, but also
even when visited by investigators questioning, they would give out noinformation. There were some who would not tell the complete facts, whileothers refused to tell the truth for fear of their reputation. There were some
who moved their residence before the investigators could call on them, and quite
a few whose fate was unknown.

This investigation was conducted from 1945 to 1946, after Japan’s defeat. At that point
all of Japan’s state institutions were under Allied control. The excuse proffered by the
Chinese prosecutors for their failure to produce evidence seems exceedingly contrived.
The reason no evidence was uncovered is obviously that there were no Japanese atrocities.
Since the prosecution had such difficulty finding witnesses, the majority of evidence
gathered was statements from Chinese accusing the Japanese of atrocities. To show how
unreliable that evidence was, I would like to reproduce testimony from a woman (ShuiFang Tsen) employed by Ginling Women’s College describing the situation at the college
on December 17, 1937, which Minnie Vautrin also described (see above).
In spite of all that she and I and the rest of us could do on the night of December
17, 1937, the soldiers entered the grounds and carried off eleven girls. Nine ofthese girls horribly raped and abused by Japanese officers later made their way
back to our grounds.
(…)
One girl was brought grounds [sic]. She could not walk and she was terribly
bruised and swollen and stated that she had been repeatedly raped and abused byfour or five soldiers.
(…)
During the first four weeks every night soldiers would come to get our girls ... It
was four or five weeks before the situation began to cease and several months
before the danger was passed.



IMTFE, Prosecution Exhibit No. 1706.



IMTFE, Prosecution Exhibit No. 308.

31

Perhaps Tsen was not aware of the detailed report that Vautrin, her superior, had
submitted to the college authorities. Knowing that the IMTFE handed down judgmentson the basis of groundless fabrications like this one, what conclusions have you reachedabout the so-called Nanjing massacre?
1Prof. Higashinakano Shudo discovered a newspaper article (shown at left) in the
December 11, 1937 edition of the Huntingdon, Pennsylvania Daily News stating that
Bates was an advisor to the Chiang government, among other Nanjing-related documentsin the possession of Yale University. The text of the article below Bates’ photograph,under the headline “In Nanking With Ropes for Walls,” reads as follows:

For more information, see Higashinakano Shudo, ed. Nankin jiken: Kokuminto gokuhi
bunsho kara yomitoku (Understanding the Nanking Incident with the aid of top-secret
Nationalist documents) (Tokyo: Soshisha, 2006), pp. 118-9. For the English translation,
see Top-Secret Chinese Nationalist Documents Reveal the Truth about the Nanking
Incident (translated by Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact), http://www.sdhfact.com/CL02_1/27_S4.pdf
2

The organizations were CCCR (The Church Committee for China Relief ) and theAmerican Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression. The CCCR washeaded by Harper Sibley (president of the US Chamber of Commerce from 1935 to 1937.
Other officers were John R. Mott, president of the World Alliance of YMCAs, vicechairman; and Margaret Falsis (YMCA, North America), and George Fitch (YMCA,
Shanghai), directors. The CCCR was headed by Harper Sibley (president of the US
Chamber of Commerce from 1935 to 1937. Other officers were John R. Mott, presidentof the World Alliance of YMCAs, vice chairman; and Margaret Falsis (YMCA, North
America), and George Fitch (YMCA, Shanghai), directors. The CCCR acted as theumbrella organization for 125,000 Protestant groups and ancillary bodies. It wasimmensely influential in convincing the Roosevelt administration to support China.
32

The officers of the American Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression
were Henry Stimson (former Secretary of State), honorary chairman; Roger S. Greene(former consul general at Hankou), chairman; Harry Price (former Yanjing University
professor), founding member and executive secretary. Its membership included Margaret
Falsis, Hellen Keller, Maxwell Stewart and George Fitch. The organization published andprinted tens of thousands of anti-Japanese pamphlets bearing titles like “America’s Sharein Japan’s War Guilt.” The group, which also lobbied media representatives, politicians
and government officials proved instrumental in turning American public opinion against
Japan.
For further information see Anti-Japanese Networks Devised by the United States, China
and the Soviet Union That Put Japan into a Quagmire by Ezaki Michio at
http://www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/38_S4.pdf.
3Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone was published in 1939, 18 months after the
Battle of Nanking, by Kelly & Walsh, a British publisher. Its editor was Hsü Shuhsi,
professor at Yanjing University and adviser to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. His work
was supervised by the Council of International Affairs in Chongqing.

The documents it contains are primarily protests, appeals and reports submitted to theJapanese military authorities, or the Japanese or US embassy. They serve as a record of
the activities in which the International Committee was involved over a two-month
period. Documents describing Japanese atrocities are, for the most part, reports made by
Chinese, which committee members simply recorded without ascertaining their veracity.
Cases that mention a witness or witnesses to a crime are exceptional. Most of these
documents were prepared by foreigners in Nanjing when the Japanese entered the city33and thereafter. Therefore, they are valuable, primary sources useful in informing us what
happened in the city after it fell. A Japanese translation of Documents of the Nanking
Safety Zone by Hora Tomio appeared in 1973 under the title Nitchu senso shi shiryo 9:
Nankin jiken II (References relating to the conflicts between China and Japan, vol. 9:
Nanking Incident II) (Kawade Shobo Shinsha). However, a more accurate translation by
Tomisawa Shigenobu was issued in 2004 (“Nankin anzen chitai no kiroku” kan’yaku tokenkyu (Complete translation and analysis of “Documents of the Nanking Safety Zone”)
by Tendensha.
4

On December 8 Tang Shengzhi, commander in chief of the Nanjing Defense Forces,
issued the following decree: “All noncombatants are to assemble in the Safety Zone,
which is under international administration.” Civilians without special permission were
not permitted to venture outside the Safety Zone under any circumstances.
5

On January 5, 1938 Clarence Gauss, US consul general in Shanghai posted a letter tothe Secretary of State. In it he mentions that Professor Bates of Nanking University had
written a memorandum describing the situation in Nanking after the Japanese victory,
and that that memorandum had been entrusted to Chicago Daily News correspondent
Steele. See Nanking Incident Source Material: American References Nankin jiken
shiryoshu 1: Amerika kankei shiryo hen, trans. Nankin Jiken Chosa Kenkyukai hen[Nanking Incident Research Group] (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1992), p. 105.
Also, in a letter to some friends dated April 12, 1938, Bates writes:
Moreover, the book uses a statement which I prepared on the 15th of December
to be utilized by the various correspondents living [sic] Nanking on that date.
(EM 34)
6

Archibald Steele and Tillman Durdin (New York Times), as well as Colin McDonald of
the London Times (who never set foot in Nanjing but was on board the USS Panay),
wrote very similar articles describing atrocities allegedly committed by the Japanese
based on Bates’ memorandum.
7

From Steele’s article in the December 15, 1937 edition of the Chicago Daily News:The story of Nanking’s fall is a story of indescribable panic and confusion among
the entrapped Chinese defenders, followed by a reign of terror by the conqueringarmy which cost thousands of lives, many of them innocent ones.
(…)
It was like killing sheep.
(…)
This account is based on the observations of myself and other foreigners
remaining in Nanking throughout the siege.

34

In his article in the December 18, 1937 edition of the New York Times, Durdin writes of“wholesale atrocities and vandalism at Nanking,” of killings, of “wholesale looting, theviolation of women, the murder of civilians.” He describes Nanjing as transformed into“a city of terror.” Durdin adds, “Any person who ran because of fear or excitement was
likely to be killed on the spot as was any one caught by roving patrols in streets or alleys
after dusk. Many slayings were witnessed by foreigners.”
It is quite clear that Bates’ memorandum formed the basis for these two articles. The
actual situation in Nanjing was drastically different, as can be seen from letters written byforeign residents of Nanking to their relatives.
8

Smythe is referring to Fukuda Tokuyasu, a Foreign Ministry clerk. Later he was private
secretary to Prime Minister Yoshida Shigeru, a member of the Lower House of theJapanese Diet, minister of defense, and minister of posts and telecommunications. The
following are excerpts from an interview conducted by writer Tanaka Masaaki.
My duties included visiting the office of the International Committee, anorganization formed by foreign nationals, nearly every day. There was muchcoming and going of Chinese youths, who were reporting incidents. Usually,
what they had to say was something like the following: “Japanese soldiers aregang-raping 15 or 16 girls on X Street right now” or “A band of Japanesesoldiers has broken into a house on Taiping Street, and is now burglarizing it.”Whichever Committee member or members was available (Rev. Magee and Mr.
Fitch, for instance) would proceed to type up the reports right in front of my eyes.
I voiced my objections to these reports any number of times: “Just a moment —you can’t submit a protest without verifying this incident.” Sometimes I would
insist that Committee members accompany me to the site where the rape orlooting had supposedly taken place. When we arrived there, we never foundevidence of a crime’s having been committed. None of these places was evenoccupied. This happened countless times.

(See Masaaki Tanaka, Nankin jiken no sokatsu (What really happened in Nanking)Tokyo: Tendensha, 2001); www.sdh-fact.com/CL02_1/7_S4.pdf .)9

When Magee testified at the IMTFE (International Military Tribune for the Far East), he
offered lurid descriptions of Japanese atrocities supposedly perpetrated in Nanjing during
a two-day period: looting, assault, rape, murder and arson. On cross-examination, Alfred
Brooks, a defense attorney, asked Magee how many of those illegal acts and murders he
had witnessed. Magee replied that he had witnessed one murder. However, according to aletter to his wife dated December 19, he hadn’t witnessed even that crime.
Just day before yesterday we saw a poor wretch killed very near the house where
we are living. So many of the Chinese are timid and when challenged foolishly
start to run. This is what happened to that man. The actual killing we did not see
as it took place just around the corner of a bamboo fence from where we could35

see. Cola went there later and said the man had been shot twice in the head. (EM171)

It seems that a man who tried to escape for some reason or other was shot. But as Magee
writes, he was not a witness to the killing. When cornered at the IMTFE, he admitted tohaving seen one murder, but even that was a lie.
Nor did his lies end there. When asked at the IMTFE about the population of Nanjing,
Magee said that 200,000 Chinese had sought refuge in the Safety Zone; then he had thegall to add that there were at least 300,000 outside the Safety Zone, which was patently
untrue. Every single member of the International Committee knew that there were very
few people, if any, outside the zone. That is why they were able to drive around the citywith such ease. But Magee told a colossal lie on the witness stand, perhaps because he
was confident that no one in the courtroom knew enough to question his testimony.
10

We know for certain that Timperley was an agent provocateur for the Chinese
Nationalist Party from An Overview of Propaganda Operations Conducted by theInternational Information Division, Central Propaganda Bureau, Nationalist Party (inthe possession of the Nationalist Party Archives in Taipei). In addition to being the editorof What War Means (published in Great Britain by Victor Gollancz Ltd.), Timperley ran
the Trans-Pacific News Service, a supposedly neutral organization controlled in actuality
by the Nationalist Party, which sent news releases to the US. (For more information, see
Kitamura Minoru, The Politics of Nanjing: An Impartial Investigation, trans. Hal Gold
(Lanham, Maryland: University Press of America, 2007).

36