Battle of Nanking

The conflict which would become known as the Second Sino-Japanese War started on July 7, 1937, with a skirmish at Marco Polo Bridge which escalated rapidly into a full-scale war in northern China between the armies of China and Japan.[7] China, however, wanted to avoid a decisive confrontation in the north and so instead opened a second front by attacking Japanese units in Shanghai in central China.[7] The Japanese responded by dispatching the Shanghai Expeditionary Army (SEA), commanded by General Iwane Matsui, to drive the Chinese Army from Shanghai.[8] Intense fighting in Shanghai forced Japan's Army General Staff, which was in charge of military operations, to repeatedly reinforce the SEA, and finally on November 9 an entirely new army, the 10th Army commanded by Lieutenant General Heisuke Yanagawa, was also landed at Hangzhou Bay just south of Shanghai.[8]

Although the arrival of the 10th Army succeeded at forcing the Chinese Army to retreat from Shanghai, the Japanese Army General Staff had decided to adopt a policy of non-expansion of hostilities with the aim of ending the war.[9] On November 7 its de facto leader Deputy Chief of Staff Hayao Tada laid down an "operation restriction line" preventing its forces from leaving the vicinity of Shanghai, or more specifically from going west of the Chinese cities of Suzhou and Jiaxing.[10] The city of Nanking is 300 kilometers (186 miles) west of Shanghai.[10]

Japanese General Iwane Matsui

However, a major rift of opinion existed between the Japanese government and its two field armies, the SEA and 10th Army, which as of November were both nominally under the control of the Central China Area Army led by SEA commander Matsui.[11] Matsui made clear to his superiors even before he left for Shanghai that he wanted to march on Nanking.[12] He was convinced that the conquest of the Chinese capital city of Nanking would provoke the fall of the entire Nationalist Government of China and thus hand Japan a quick and complete victory in its war on China.[12] Yanagawa was likewise eager to conquer Nanking and both men chafed under the operation restriction line that had been imposed on them by the Army General Staff.[11]

On November 19 Yanagawa ordered his 10th Army to pursue retreating Chinese forces across the operation restriction line to Nanking, a flagrant act of insubordination.[13] When Tada discovered this the next day he ordered Yanagawa to stop immediately, but was ignored. Matsui made some effort to restrain Yanagawa, but also told him that he could send some advance units beyond the line.[8] In fact, Matsui was highly sympathetic with Yanagawa's actions[14] and a few days later on November 22 Matsui issued an urgent telegram to the Army General Staff insisting that "To resolve this crisis in a prompt manner we need to take advantage of the enemy's present declining fortunes and conquer Nanking ... By staying behind the operation restriction line at this point we are not only letting our chance to advance slip by, but it is also having the effect of encouraging the enemy to replenish their fighting strength and recover their fighting spirit and there is a risk that it will become harder to completely break their will to make war."[15]

Meanwhile, as more and more Japanese units continued to slip past the operation restriction line, Tada was also coming under pressure from within the Army General Staff.[11] Many of Tada's colleagues and subordinates, including the powerful Chief of the General Staff Operations Division Sadamu Shimomura, had come around to Matsui's viewpoint and wanted Tada to approve an attack on Nanking.[13] On November 24 Tada finally relented and abolished the operation restriction line "owing to circumstances beyond our control", and then several days later he reluctantly approved the operation to capture Nanking.[11] Tada flew to Shanghai in person on December 1 to deliver the order,[16] though by then his own armies in the field were already well on their way to Nanking.[11]

On November 15, near the end of the Battle of Shanghai, Chiang Kai-shek convened a meeting of the Military Affairs Commission's Supreme National Defense Council to undertake strategic planning, including a decision on what to do in case of a Japanese attack on Nanking.[17] Here Chiang insisted fervently on mounting a sustained defense of Nanking. Chiang argued, just as he had during the Battle of Shanghai, that China would be more likely to receive aid from the great powers, possibly at the ongoing Nine Power Treaty Conference, if it could prove on the battlefield its will and capacity to resist the Japanese.[17] He also noted that holding onto Nanking would strengthen China's hand in peace talks which he wanted the German ambassador Oskar Trautmann to mediate.[17]

Chiang ran into stiff opposition from his officers, including the powerful Chief of Staff of the Military Affairs Commission He Yingqin, the Deputy Chief of Staff Bai Chongxi, the head of the Fifth War Zone Li Zongren, and his German advisor Alexander von Falkenhausen.[17][18][19] They argued that the Chinese Army needed more time to recover from its losses at Shanghai, and pointed out that Nanking was highly indefensible topographically.[17] The mostly gently sloping terrain in front of Nanking would make it easy for the attackers to advance on the city, while the Yangtze River behind Nanking would cut off the defenders' retreat.[18]

Chinese General Tang Shengzhi

Chiang, however, had become increasingly agitated over the course of the Battle of Shanghai, even angrily declaring that he would stay behind in Nanking alone and command its defense personally.[18] But just when Chiang believed himself completely isolated, General Tang Shengzhi, an ambitious senior member of the Military Affairs Commission, spoke out in defense of Chiang's position, although accounts vary on whether Tang vociferously jumped to Chiang's aid or only reluctantly did so.[17][18] Seizing the opportunity Tang had given him, Chiang responded by organizing the Nanking Garrison Force on November 20 and officially making Tang its commander on November 25.[18] The orders Tang received from Chiang on November 30 were to "defend the established defense lines at any cost and destroy the enemy’s besieging force".[18]

Though both men publicly declared that they would defend Nanking "to the last man",[20][21] they were aware of their precarious situation.[18] On the same day that the Garrison Force was established Chiang officially moved the capital of China from Nanking to Chongqing deep in China's interior.[22] Further, both Chiang and Tang would at times give contradictory instructions to their subordinates on whether their mission was to defend Nanking to the death or merely delay the Japanese advance.[18]

Following the Manchurian Incident of 1931, the Chinese government began a fast track national defense program with massive construction of primary and auxiliary air force bases around the capital of Nanking including Jurong Airbase, completed in 1934, from which to facilitate aerial defense as well as launching counter-strikes against enemy incursions; on 15 August 1937 the IJN launched the first of many heavy schnellbomber (fast bomber) raids against Jurong Airbase using the advanced G3Ms based upon Giulio Douhet's blitz-attack concept in an attempt to neutralize the Chinese Air Force fighters guarding the capital city, but was severely repulsed by the unexpected heavy resistance and performance of the Chinese fighter pilots stationed at Jurong, and suffering almost 50% loss rate.[23][24]

On November 20 the Chinese Army and teams of conscripted laborers began to hurriedly bolster Nanking's defenses both inside and outside the city.[22][25] Nanking itself was surrounded by formidable stone walls stretching almost fifty kilometers (31 miles) around the entire city.[26] The walls, which had been constructed hundreds of years earlier during the Ming Dynasty, rose up to twenty meters (65 feet) in height, were nine meters (30 feet) thick, and had been studded with machine gun emplacements.[27] By December 6 all the gates into the city had been closed and then barricaded with an additional layer of sandbags and concrete six meters (20 feet) thick.[28][29]

Outside the walls a series of semicircular defense lines were constructed in the path of the Japanese advance, most notably an outer one about sixteen kilometers (10 miles) from the city and an inner one directly outside the city known as the Fukuo Line, or multiple positions line.[30][31][32] The Fukuo Line, a sprawling network of trenches, moats, barbed wire, mine fields, gun emplacements, and pillboxes, was to be the final defense line outside Nanking's city walls. There were also two key high points of land on the Fukuo Line, the peaks of Zijinshan to the northeast and the plateau of Yuhuatai to the south, where fortification was especially dense.[22][33][34] In order to deny the Japanese invaders any shelter or supplies in this area, Tang adopted a strategy of scorched earth on December 7, ordering all homes and structures in the path of the Japanese within one to two kilometers (1.2 miles) of the city to be incinerated, as well as all homes and structures near roadways within sixteen kilometers (10 miles) of the city.[22]

The defending army, the Nanking Garrison Force, was on paper a formidable army of thirteen divisions, including three elite German-trained divisions plus the super-elite Training Brigade, but in reality most of these units had trickled back to Nanking severely mauled from the fighting in Shanghai.[35][36] By the time they reached Nanking they were physically exhausted, low on equipment, and badly depleted in total troop strength. In order to replenish some of these units, 16,000 young men and teenagers from Nanking and the rural villages surrounding it were speedily pressed into service as new recruits.[22][37] An additional 14,000 fresh soldiers were brought in from Hankou to fill the ranks of the 2nd Army.[38] However, due to the unexpected rapidity of the Japanese advance, most of the new conscripts received only rudimentary training on how to fire their guns on their way to or upon their arrival at the frontlines.[22][36] No definitive statistics exist on how many soldiers the Nanking Garrison Force had managed to cobble together by the time of the battle, but among leading estimates are those of David Askew who says 73,790 to 81,500,[39] those of Ikuhiko Hata who estimates 100,000,[2] and those of Tokushi Kasahara who argues in favor of about 150,000.[22]

A Chinese civilian carries his dying son wounded in a Japanese air raid on Nanking.

But during this period Japan's Navy Air Service was launching frequent air raids on the city, eventually totaling 50 raids according to the Navy's own records.[40] The Imperial Japanese Navy Air Service had struck Nanking for the first time on August 15 with Mitsubishi G3M medium-heavy bombers, but suffered heavy losses in face of the aerial defense from Chinese Air Force Boeing P-26/281 Peashooter and Hawk II/Hawk III fighters based primarily at Jurong Airbase for the defense of Nanking.[41] It wasn't until after the introduction of the advanced Mitsubishi A5M fighter did the Japanese begin to turn the tide in air-to-air combat, and proceed with bombing both military and civilian targets day and night with increasing impunity as the Chinese Air Force losses mounted through continuous attrition; the Chinese did not have the aircraft industry nor comprehensive training regimen to replace men and machines to contend against the ever-growing and ever-improving Japanese war machine.[40] However, experienced veteran fighter pilots of the Chinese Air Force still proved a most dangerous adversary against Japanese air power; combat aces Col. Gao Zhihang, Maj. John Wong Pan-yang and Capt. Liu Cuigang whom were outnumbered by the superior A5Ms entering Nanking on October 12, famously shot down four A5M fighters that day including a double-kill by Col. Gao that included Shotai leader W.O. Torakuma.[42] Tragically both Col. Gao and Capt. Liu were lost due to non-aerial combat incidents by the following month as they were preparing to receive improved fighter aircraft design in the Polikarpov I-16s.[43] In the face of Japanese terror bombing and the ongoing advance of the Imperial Japanese Army, the large majority of Nanking's citizens fled the city, which by early December Nanking's population had dropped from its former total of more than one million to less than 500,000, a figure which included Chinese refugees from rural villages burned down by their own government's scorched earth policies.[44][45] Most of those still in the city were very poor and had nowhere else to go.[44] Foreign residents of Nanking were also repeatedly asked to leave the city which was becoming more and more chaotic under the strain of bombings, fires, looting by criminals, and electrical outages,[29][46] but those few foreigners brave enough to stay behind strived to find a way to help the Chinese civilians who had been unable to leave.[47] In late-November a group of them led by German citizen John Rabe established the Nanking Safety Zone in the center of the city, a self-proclaimed demilitarized zone where civilian refugees could congregate in order to hopefully escape the fighting.[47] The safety zone was recognized by the Chinese government,[48] and on December 8 Tang Shengzhi demanded that all civilians evacuate there.[28]

Among those Chinese who did manage to escape Nanking were Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Mei-ling, who had flown out of Nanking on a private plane just before the crack of dawn on December 7.[49] The mayor of Nanking and most of the municipal government left the same day, entrusting management of the city to the Nanking Garrison Force.[49]

By the start of December, Japan's Central China Area Army had swollen in strength to over 160,000 men,[50] though only about 50,000 of these would ultimately participate in the fighting.[51] The plan of attack against Nanking was a pincer movement which the Japanese called "encirclement and annihilation".[49][52] The two prongs of the Central China Area Army's pincer were the Shanghai Expeditionary Army (SEA) advancing on Nanking from its eastern side and the 10th Army advancing from its southern side. To the north and west of Nanking lay the Yangtze River, but the Japanese planned to plug this possible escape route as well both by dispatching a squadron of ships up the river and by deploying two special detachments to circle around behind the city.[53] The Kunisaki Detachment was to cross the Yangtze in the south with the ultimate aim of occupying Pukou on the river bank west of Nanking while the Yamada Detachment was to be sent on the far north route with the ultimate aim of taking Mufushan just north of Nanking.[53]

General Matsui, along with the Army General Staff, envisaged making a slow and steady march on Nanking, but his subordinates refused to play along and instead raced eagerly with each other to be the first to get to the city.[54][55][56] Soon all units were roaring to Nanking at the breakneck pace of up to forty kilometers (25 miles) per day.[57] For instance, the 10th Army captured the key town of Guangde on November 30 three days before it was even supposed to start its planned advance, and the SEA captured Danyang on December 2 more than five days ahead of schedule.[54] In order to achieve such speeds, the Japanese soldiers carried little with them except weaponry and ammunition.[58] Because they were marching well ahead of most of their supply lines they had to purchase or loot their food from Chinese civilians along the way.[58]

Japanese soldiers marching on Nanking

During their advance the Japanese overcame initially light resistance from the already battered Chinese forces who were being pursued by the Japanese from Shanghai in a "running battle".[30][37] Here the Japanese were aided by their complete air supremacy, their abundance of tanks, the improvised and hastily constructed nature of the Chinese defenses, and also by the Chinese strategy of concentrating their defending forces on small patches of relatively high ground which made them easy to outflank and surround.[8][59][60]

On December 5, Chiang Kai-shek paid a visit to a defensive encampment near Jurong to boost the morale of his men but was forced to retreat when the Imperial Japanese Army began their attack on the battlefield.[61] On that day the rapidly moving forward contingents of the SEA occupied Jurong and then arrived at Chunhuazhen, a key point of Nanking's outer line of defense which would put Japanese artillery in range of the city.[31][49][61] Here China's 51st Division flung its main force into the fighting and repeatedly repulsed Japanese attacks before cracking on December 8 when the main force of the SEA arrived.[61] The SEA also took the fortress at Zhenjiang and the spa town of Tangshuizhen on that day.[62] Meanwhile, on the south side of the same defense line, armored vehicles of Japan's 10th Army charged the Chinese position at Jiangjunshan and Niushoushan defended by China's 58th Division.[61] Valiant Chinese soldiers armed with hammers jumped onto the vehicles and banged repeatedly on their roofs shouting "Get out of there!", but after darkness fell on the battlefield the 58th Division was finally overwhelmed on December 9 after suffering, according to its own records, 800 casualties.[61]

By December 9 Japan's forces had reached Nanking's last line of defense, the daunting Fukuo Line.[63] At this point General Matsui had a "summons to surrender" drawn up which implored the Chinese to send military envoys to Nanking's Zhongshan Gate to discuss terms for the peaceful occupation of the city, and he then had a Mitsubishi Ki-21 scatter thousands of copies of the message over the city.[64][65] On December 10 a group of Matsui's senior staff officers waited to see if the gate would be opened, but Tang Shengzhi had no intention of responding.[65]

Later that day Tang proclaimed to his men that, "Our army has entered into the final battle to defend Nanking on the Fukuo Line. Each unit shall firmly defend its post with the resolve to either live or die with it. You're not allowed to retreat on your own, causing defense to collapse."[63][66] The American journalist F. Tillman Durdin, who was reporting on site during the battle, saw one small group of Chinese soldiers set up a barricade, assemble in a solemn semicircle, and promise each other that they would die together where they stood.[60]

Unbeknownst to the Japanese however, Chiang had already ordered Tang to abandon the defense.[79] In spite of his earlier talk about holding out in Nanking to the bitter end, Chiang telegraphed an order to Tang on December 11 to abandon the city.[81] Tang prepared to do so the next day on December 12, but startled by Japan's intensified onslaught he made a frantic last-minute bid to conclude a temporary ceasefire with the Japanese through German citizens John Rabe and Eduard Sperling.[81] Only when it became clear that the negotiations could not be completed in time did Tang finally finish drawing up a plan calling for all his units to launch a coordinated breakout of the Japanese encirclement.[81] They were to commence the breakout under cover of darkness at 11:00 pm that night and then muster in Anhui. Just after 5:00 pm on December 12 Tang arranged for this plan to be transmitted to all units, and then he crossed the Yangtze River, escaping through the city of Pukou on the opposite bank of the river less than twenty-four hours before it was occupied by Japan's Kunisaki Detachment.[81]

By the time Tang slipped out of the city, however, the entire Nanking Garrison Force was rapidly disintegrating with some units in open flight.[81][82] Furthermore, contact had already been lost with many units who thus never received Tang's message and continued to hold their positions as ordered,[83] though even those that did receive it had little luck at slipping through the Japanese lines.[84] China's 66th and 83rd Corps made a bid to evade the Japanese as planned through a gap to the east but immediately ran into their own minefield.[84] After that they were attacked in flight by Japanese units and lost two divisional chiefs of staff in combat.[84] Though the two corps had started the battle at least 11,000 men strong, only 600 of them escaped Nanking.[84][85] Near dawn on December 13 a portion of China's 74th Corps was also annihilated in a bid to break through Japanese lines along the Yangtze River south of Nanking.[84]

One of the few units that did manage to get out of Nanking was China's 2nd Army led by Xu Yuanquan situated just north of Nanking.[84] Though Xu never received Tang's order to abandon the defense, on the night of December 12 he had heard that Nanking had been captured and so decided to withdraw on his own accord. During the night he managed to evacuate most of his unit across the Yangtze River just before Japanese naval units blockaded the river.[84]

Debris scattered on Nanking's Zhongshan Road

By contrast, a massive crowd of thousands of Chinese soldiers and civilians from the south side of Nanking, who were fleeing in panic and disarray from the advance of Japan's 10th Army on the same night, were prevented from reaching the harbor at Xiaguan by Chinese barrier troops who fired on the crowd for retreating without permission and managed to hold it back.[86][87] At 9:00 pm a fleeing Chinese tank unit, which had also not received Tang's parting message, charged the barrier troops and burst through their blockade, only for the crowd to then find that there were hardly any boats remaining in the harbor.[86] The crowd fought to clamber aboard what few craft were available, but these soon became so overloaded that they sank midway.[84] The rest of the Chinese soldiers took to the Yangtze's rough and frigid waters en masse while clinging to logs and pieces of scrap lumber, though most were quickly swallowed up by the river.[86] Furthermore, by this point the Japanese encirclement of Nanking was virtually complete and many who were attempting to brave the Yangtze soon found themselves being fired upon from both sides of the river.[88] Others who saw this turned back to the city in despair.[86]

Japanese military leaders Kiyoshi Hasegawa (admiral), Iwane Matsui, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, and Heisuke Yanagawa at the Memorial Ceremony for War Dead at Nanking Airfield on December 13, 1937

Many of these tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers who could not escape the city responded by casting off their uniforms and weaponry, switching to civilian clothes often by stealing them from passersby, and then desperately seeking sanctuary in the Nanking Safety Zone by mingling with civilians.[84] The American journalist F. Tillman Durdin "witnessed the wholesale undressing of an army that was almost comic".[83] "Arms were discarded along with uniforms, and the streets became covered with guns, grenades, swords, knapsacks, coats, shoes and helmets ... In front of the Ministry of Communications and for two blocks further on, trucks, artillery, busses, staff cars, wagons, machine-guns, and small arms became piled up as in a junk yard."[60]