Scars Of Nanking

Leo.

For God’s sake, Steele. Come on!

Leo.

It’s open.

You can finish this on the boat.

Right.

That is if the Japs don’t boob us first like they did the Panay.

Well, I can swim. Can’t you?

Get a move on, Will you?

We can file our stories in Shanghai.

Japan launches a full-scale invasion of China in July 1937

As a part of its plan to rule all of Asia.

To take its place into the global power.

After 5 months of hard fight,

They take what was then the capital of China, Nanking.

Mr, Simth.

Mr. Steele.

Dr.Wilson.

I was afraid I wouldn’t catch you in time.

Thought you left days ago.

Bob.

The embassy tried to convince most of us to leave on the Panay.

Good thing…we didn’t, or we might be on the bottom of the Yangtze River alongside it.

Besides Fitch here, how many of you are crazy enough to stay?

Last count, it was 22 foreigners.

14 of us Americans.

Well, you have another chance to leave.

We have a boat waiting to take us to the Oahu.

Smooth sailing to Shanghai courtesy of the Us navy.

It seems I’m the last surgeon left in Nanking. I can’t leave.

But I do have a favor to ask of you.

Anything.

But make it quick.

Take this letter along with you. It is to my family.

Good luck.

And to you.

Thanks for the lift, Mr. Fitch.

Oh God…

We can’t drive through that.

End of the safety zone.

When they first broke through, I met a

Japanese officer who had it marked on his map.

Doesn’t look like those two have a map.

Come on, we are on foot.

Journalists Archibald Steele and Leslie C Smith are trying to escape a nightmare.

For two days,

Japanese troops have been rampaging through Nanking.

After the city fell to the Japanese Army,

The first few days were probably the worst.

In terms of the mass execution,

Random killing of civilians.

The kind of violence that has happened in Nanchang occurs,

Which is often Personal,

Which is sadistic, In-close quatres,

Involves humiliation, rape, and degradation.

The really interesting thing about Nanchang is how much evidence we have,

And the evidence we have comes from the foreigners who chose to stay.

As a foreigner, Journalists are allowed to pass unharmed.

Japan does not want to revoke the Western powers.

Steele and Smith make their way to the Yangtze River.

Steele.

I didn’t know if you were going to make it.

Our ride to the Oahu is waiting.

A moment later,

Journalists Archibald Steele and Tillman Durdin

witness what happened to the Chinese prisoners.

The Japanese may call this war.

It looks like murder to me.

And the scene on the riverfront as I wait for the launch to the Oahu,

Was of a group of smoking chatting Japanese officers overseeing

the massacre of the Battalion Chinese captive troops.

They marched them out in groups of about 15. Machinegunning them.

Japan always felt there was a superior race than any other races.

All the Asians.

The superiority complex as nation made them kill people they felt were inferior.

The responsibilities of the Emperor system were

certainly the important factor in wartime atrocities.

People did in name of the Emperor.

Let me spell it out for you.

American. American. American. We are all Americans.

You’ve got to help us.

We’ve got to get our stories out.

Like I told you before,

You can get your stories out when we get back to Shanghai.

But that won’t be for another day.

We can still make today’s deadline if you just help us.

Listen, we might not ever make it to Shanghai.

The Jap may make another mistake and boob us too.

Do you know what’s going on back there?

Murder.

By the thousands. Women, children, civilians.

The world has got to know what the Japs are doing to Nanking.

I am sorry, fellas.

But it’s against the US Navy regulations to let civilians use the radio.

Come on. We’re never going to get this guy to budge.

Yeah, right behind you.

Steele is still determined to get his story out.

Where are you from?

Davenport, Iowa.

What do you know? I am from Chicago.

It’s practically the same thing.

You and me, we’ve got to stick together.

Nanking, China. December 15, 1937.

“Four days in hell” would be the most fitting way

to describe the siege and capture of Nanking.

The last thing we saw as we left the city was a

band of 300 Chinese being methodically executed.

before the wall, near the Waterfront, where already corpses were piled knee deep.

Archibald Steele is one of the last foreign journalists to leave Nanking.

It was a characteristic picture of the mad of Nanking scene.

But the story of the fall of Nanking and its brutal aftermath begins weeks earlier.

After a bloody battle to take the financial Hub of Shanghai,

Japanese troops begin a forced March along the Yangtze River to Nanking.

The goal,

Break the backbone of Chinese resistance.

Nanking was capital.

Once you occupy the capital,

That means you are declaring your victory.

One could say that the march towards Nanking from Shanghai

was the series of massacres. In many different locations.

It could be somewhere compared to the army that faces guerrilla warfare in other wars.

Nanking is now under siege.

The Japanese commanders allowed their soldiers to

rape, kill, loot, torture and act with impunity.

So, when they got to Nanking,

It was already understood by the soldiers that

they would be allowed to do whatever they want.

Dr. Wilson.

Is anyone hurt?

No. Sir.

Then stopping is not an option.

This will be the fastest eye surgery in history.

Ah, there you are.

Robert Wilson is one of the younger members of The Foreigner Community.

Given born in China.

His parents sent him back to the United States Princeton Harvard Medical School,

So, you can almost think about him as a doctor without Borders.

Dr. Zhang.

What is it?

Dr. Wilson.

We feel we must leave Nanking.

With the capital of China, Nanking, nearly surrounded by Japanese troops,

Doctor Robert Wilson learns that many of the Chinese

doctors and staff at his Hospital are leaving the city.

I am staying.

Dr. Liu.

Aren’t you afraid of your personal safety?

Naturally.

But it is my duty to stay and help.

By staying behind in the Fallen City.

It's risk itself.

So, I think those Chinese individuals, doctors, nurses

who stayed behind were certainly very courageous.

Dr. Wilson is now the only surgent left in Nanking.

My little shrapnel and bullets collection are increasing daily.

I’ll be able to open a respectable museum by the end of the war.

The letter of diary in the American missionary like Dr. Wilson

provided real-time eyewitness accounts of what takes place in Nanking.

The situation is far worse than I thought.

From what I’ve heard, the Japanese are mad as Hornets

after the fight the Chinese put up in Shanghai.

They’re looting and burning their way here.

I think we can all agree that it is inevitable, the Japanese will take Nanking.

Perhaps, after they do, things will calm down a bit.

We may hope so, Dr. Wilson.

But the wounded Chinese soldiers at the train station

don’t hold out much hope for Japanese mercy.

The point is…

If I may say so…

The point is we must limit any violence and protect the Chinese population.

I think we can all agree with that.

We’ll need everyone pulling together.

Let’s take a look here.

15 of the remaining foreigners form an international

committee to establish the safety zone.

They will protect Chinese civilians from the invading Japanese.

It will be an area less than 2 square miles in

compassing college campuses, embassies and hospitals.

And eventually housing more than 20 refugee camps.

The missionary, educators, the doctors who stayed behind chose

to stay and not to bear witness to history but to help.

It is essential that no Chinese Army troops are to enter the safety zone.

If they do, it just gives the Japanese an excuse to violate it.

But we're going to have to make the Japanese keep the same promise.

No military personnel in the safety area.

The committee selects George Fitch, Head of the YMCA, as its administrative director.

And the German businessman John Rabe as chairman.

Germany was already a friend of Japan.

And they thought that having a German who happened to be a Nazi party

member would carry more clout with the Japanese military authorities.

Mr. Rabe is proving himself to be quite the humanitarian.

Although I will never understand his affection for Der Fuhrer.

When the international committee set up the refugees Zone,

The agreement was that there would be no Chinese soldiers allowed in it,

And that was the only chance there was that the Japanese would respect that area.

The international Committee is doing a splendid piece of work.

But the outcome is a matter of grave concern.

The Japanese have definitely stated they will not recognize the safety zone.

Minnie Vautrin was born in Illinois in 1886, and she found herself in

the head of one of the best women's colleges in Nanjing Jalen College.