The Rape of Nanking. During the Sino-Japanese War, Nanking, the capital of China, fell to Japanese forces, and the Chinese government fled to Hankow, a city further inland along the Yangtze River. Japanese General Matsui Iwane had ordered the destruction of Nanking to exhaust Chinese resistance. Much of the city was burned, and Japanese soldiers unleashed atrocious violence against civilians. The tragic “Rape of Nanking” saw the Japanese massacre an estimated 150,000 male “prisoners of war,” 50,000 male civilians, and brutalize at least 20,000 women and girls of all ages, many of whom were mutilated or killed. Shortly after the end of World War II, Matsui was found guilty of war crimes by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East and executed.
