American Missionary Eyewitnesses to the Nanking Massacre, 1937-1938
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· · · Yale Divinity ·School · Library Occasional Publication No. 9 YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL LIBRARY Occasional Publication No. 9 AMERICAN MISSIONARY EYEWITNESSES TO THE NANKING MASSACRE, 1937-1938 Edited by Martha Lund Smalley Preface by Tien-wei Wu Introduction by Beatrice S. Bartlett Yale Divinity School Library New Haven, Connecticut 1997 Copyright, 1997 Yale Divinity School Library CONTENTS List of illustrations....................................................................................................................... .i Preface .......................................................................................................................................iii Introduction ................................................................................................................................v Sketches of the missionaries Miner Searle Bates ...........................................................................................................2 John G. Magee .................................................................................................................3 George A. Fitch ...............................................................................................................4 Lewis S. C. Smythe.......................................................................................................... 5 W. Plumer Mills................................................................................................................ 6 Robert 0. Wilson............................................................................................................. 7 Ernest H. Forster.............................................................................................................. 8 James H. McCallum......................................................................................................... 9 Minnie Vautriri................................ .' .............................................................................. 10 Documentationof the Nanking Massacre Report of the Nanking InternationalRelief Committee ...................................................11 Chronologicalsequence. of transcriptions:letters and reports from the missionaries......... 13 Photographs................................................................................................................... 67 Facsimiledocuments: ...................................................................................................... 73 December 16, 1937 letter from Lewis S. C. Smytheto the Japanese Embassy December 20, 1937 cable to AmericanConsulate-General in Shanghai December 24, 1937 circular letter of George Fitch January 9, 1938 letter from M. SearleBates to his wife January 11, 1938 letter from John Magee to Bp. WilliamRoberts March 8, 1938 circular letter from Lewis S. C. Smythe "House of Restful Consolation"poster Appendix:Documentation of the Nanking Massacre at the Yale Divinity School Library LIST OF !LLUS1RATIONS Map of sites of the Nanking Massacre .......................................................................................... 1 The missionaries: Miner Searle Bates ................................................................................................ 2 John Magee .......................................................................................................... 3 George A. Fitch .................................................................................................... 4 Lewis S. C. Smythe. .............................................................................................. 5 W. Plumer Mills .................................................................................................... 6 Robert 0. Wilson .................................................................................................. 7 Ernest H. Forster .................................................................................................. 8 James H. McCallum .............................................................................................. 9 Minnie Vautrin .................................................................................................... 10 Victims: ..................................................................................................................................... 67 Bodies of victims outside the city ofNanking A woman killed by Japanese troops along a country road outside ofNanking, March 1938 A drainage pond outside ofNanking, filled with the bodies of Chinese murdered by Japanese soldiers The wife of the American Church Mission's gatekeeper being carried into the hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds inflicted by a Japanese soldier who threatened to rape her. Two brothers outside the ruins of the shop that was their livelihood Refugees: Refugees at Ginling College Refugees at the University ofNanking Refugees waiting for relief at the Safety Zone Committee headquarters Refugee huts outside the Safety Zone 1 PREFACE The Nanking Massacre is doubtless one of the greatest horrors in the annals of mankind. By some estimations, within three months (December 13, 1937 - March 1938) the Japanese army killed more than 300,000 innocent Chinese and raped up to 80,000 women in the city ofNanking. Not only was the number of victims so high, the manner in which these victims met their death was extremely cruel and diverse ( e.g. beheading, bayoneting, burying alive, burning, gang-raping, etc.), so ghastly in fact that it made the Auschwitz gas chamber appear humane. Despite the volume of evidence confirming the Massacre, the Japanese government for decades has denied the undeniable and some of its leaders have accused the United States of conspiring with China to fabricate the story in order to prove that the Japanese, being a cruel people, deserved the atomic bombings. Tillman Durdin's New York Times article, "Butchery Marked Capture ofNanking; All Chinese Captives Slain" was the first report of events dispatched from Nanking. When Nanking fell, there were twenty-seven Westerners remaining in the city; fifteen of them were Americans, primarily missionaries from the Episcopal, Disciples of Christ, Presbyterian, and Methodist churches. Against the advice of the U.S. Embassy to evacuate, these dedicated missionaries voluntarily chose to stay. With the blessings of the Chinese Nanking municipal government and the knowledge of the Japanese Embassy, they created the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone shortly before the capture ofNanking by the Japanese. Once the Massacre set in, the Safety Zone became the only place that offered some semblanc~ of sanctuary; as a result, more than 200,000 people crowded into an area about one-eighth of the city. Throughout the long duration of the Massacre, these few foreigners were the true protectors of the desperate Chinese. They risked their own lives to save thousands of Chinese from being murdered and thousands of women from being raped by the Japanese army. Without doubt the victims and the perpetrators can attest to the truth of the Nanking Massacre, but as the situation stands today, massive evidence brought forth by the Chinese victims has failed to draw world attention. While thousands of former Japanese Imperial Army men, scores of journalists who accompanied them to enter Nanking, and some of the Japanese Embassy personnel who are living today, were witnesses to the Massacre, they consistently refuse to talk. Indeed, had not the faithful, fearless, highly-educated American missionaries been the eyewitnesses to the Nanking Massacre and left us massive, irrevocable testimonies, an important page of human history might be lost. To commemorate the 50th anniversary of China's victory over Japan in World War II, Prof. Zhang Kai-yuan, a student of Dr. M. S. Bates, published his An Eyewitness' Historical Records of the Nanking Massacre: A Study of Dr. M S. Bates in Chinese. The publication of Zhang's book caught the attention of many scholars and aroused the interest ofBates' former students at the University ofNanking, particularly Mr. Tsuin-ho Kwoh and his wife, Hsuing Kwang, and myself. We decided to carry on what Prof. Zhang initiated by exploring further the Bates papers deposited at the Yale Divinity School Library, selecting materials pertinent to the Nanking Massacre, and publishing them so as to enable interested Americans and people of the world to read for themselves. Guided by Martha Lund Smalley, Curator of the Day Missions Collection at the Yale Divinity School Library, I read through the papers of those missionari~s 111 involved in the Nanking Massacre and discovered a mine of information, some of which is hitherto unknown. We encouraged the publication of these rare and crucial materials in a book. The book is published in coordination with an exhibit on the "American Missionary Eyewitnesses to the Nanking Massacre" at the Yale Divinity School Library, August 1996 to January 1997. The papers we selected for inclusion in this volume come from the pens of nine American missionaries: Miner Searle Bates, John G. Magee, George A. Fitch, Lewis S. C. Smythe, W. Plumer Mills, Robert O.Wilson, Ernest H. Forster, James H. McCallum, and Minnie Vautrin. All the papers published here are from manuscripts in the collections of the Yale Divinity School Library. Many have been transcribed to improve their legibility, but facsimile documents are also included. An appendix lists the location' of the documents published here, as well as many additional materials