PHOTOS : 75th Anniversary of the Nanjing Massacre

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The Nanjing Massacre: Scenes from a Hideous Slaughter 75 Years Ago

75 years ago, on Dec. 13, 1937, Japanese troops captured the city of Nanjing, then the capital of the Chinese republic led by Chiang Kai-shek and went on a six-week campaign of carnage and slaughter that would be forever remembered as the “Rape of Nanjing.” Reports document widespread rape and the indiscriminate killing of civilians; some death tolls estimate over a quarter of a million people were killed. The incident, though, still rankles Sino-Japanese relations. Japanese nationalists contend that the death tolls are inflated and the majority killed were resisting Japanese occupation. To this day, pages in Japanese school history textbooks can incite heated protests on the streets in China. Then and now, the Nanjing massacre remains one of the darkest events of the last century.
—Ishaan Tharoor

Japanese soldiers occupy Nanjing, then the capital of the nationalist Chinese Republic of China led by Chiang Kai-shek, Dec. 1937.


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Taken a day after they had captured the former Chinese capital city on Dec. 13, 1937, this picture shows victorious Japanese infantrymen patrolling the building
that had previously housed the Finance Ministry of the Republic of China's government.


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Mounted Japanese troops pass under the Chungshan Gate while entering Nanjing, China, Jan. 4, 1938.

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Japanese invaders found this portion of Nanjing deserted when they forced their way into the city, but the work of the Chinese in setting fire to the city
can be noted in the background, Dec. 28, 1937.


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An official Japanese picture of a captured Chinese soldier, Nanjing, China, Dec. 1937.
With or without uniforms, thousands of Chinese soldiers at Nanking were brutally executed.


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Desolation in Nanjing, following Japanese attacks, Jan. 4, 1938.

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Confident Japanese troops raise their rifles into the air as they approach the Chinese capital of Nanjing, 1937.

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Chinese prisoners are used as live targets in a bayonet drill by their Japanese captors during their occupation of Nanjing.


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The dead litter the streets in Nanjing, China, following the Japanese assault on the city, Dec. 14, 1937.


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A Japanese headsman tells a Chinese prisoner how to hold his head for a smooth decapitation in a photo dated from 1938.

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A Chinese woman, clutching a child, grieves by the body of her slain husband, Dec. 30, 1937.


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Chinese prisoners are buried alive by their Japanese captors outside the city of Nanjing.


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This Nanjing boy was manhandled, cut about the face and burned after something inflammable was thrown upon him on Feb. 5, 1938.


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A Chinese civilian reportedly slashed by a Japanese soldier with a sword. The latter failed to sever this man's head from his body and the Chinese man lived.
Here he is in a hospital being cared for on Feb. 5, 1938.


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Photo shows a Nanjing man who was hacked along the throat allegedly by a Japanese bayonet on Feb. 5, 1938.


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A Chinese girl from Nanjing lies in a hospital recovering from severe burns and cuts after the Japanesse attack on the city, Feb. 5, 1938.


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Another Chinese victim burned and slashed by a Japanese attacker in Nanking, China, shown Dec. 29, 1938.


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Figures in a puppet Chinese government set up by the Japanese pose for a picture in Beijing, Jan. 1938.


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A Japanese bugler symbolically sounds a victory cease fire from his position on top of Purple Mountain
during the Japanese occupation of Nanjing, China, Jan. 1938.


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In Tokyo, Japanese schoolboys celebrate the fall of Nanjing, Jan. 5, 1938.


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