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Parent | Rape of Nanking Told by Doctor in Trial of Tojo News Article |
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Date | |
Language | English |
Collection | C.W.J. Phelps Collection |
Box | Box 1 |
Folder | First Phelps Scrap Book |
Repository | University of Virginia Law Library |
Rape of Nanking Told by Doctor in Trial of Tojo
Tokyo, July 25 (AP) – Six weeks of rape, bayonet attacks and burning of gasoline-covered Chinese after the Japanese seized Nanking Dec. 12, 1937, were described today by a prosecution witness in Tokyo’s war crimes trial.
“A man came to the hospital with a bullet in the jaw and two-thirds of his body burned,” said De. Robert O. Wilson, surgeon at Nanking’s university hospital.
“He had been seized by Japanese soldiers, shot covered with gasoline and set afire. HE died two days later. Another man, severely burned about the head and shoulders, was the only survivor of a large group bound together, drenched with gasoline and set afire.”
Witness Saw Atrocities
His testimony marked the first prosecution move to bring atrocities into the case against Hideki Tojo and 26 other accused war criminals.
Dr. Wilson said a woman, repeatedly attacked by Japanese soldiers, received a gash across the back of her neck which severed all muscles down to the vertebrae, leaving her head precariously balanced on her body. She blamed a Japanese officer.
“One day, when I was having lunch, a neighbor rushed in and said that Japanese soldiers were attacking women at their home,” the witness said. “I went to the gatehouse and found three Japanese with bayonets outside and inside two Japanese soldiers in the act of raping two Chinese women. I took the women to the University of Nanking for refuge.”
Opium Sales Increased
He testified that opium sales were greatly increased by the Japanese after the occupation. The prosecution claims that opium was a weapon used by Japanese to keep the Chinese in hand.
The tribunal today squelched a defense attack to blame American and commercial interests for the start of the war. William Webb, president of the tribunal, quickly interrupted Alfred W. Brooks, defense attorney from Kansas City, when he argued “there was a growing apprehension among Japanese and other Asiatics over the economic aggression of these commercial interests.”