nged in 1948. After the war, China tried about 800 persons for war crimes including those responsible for the Nanking and Shanghai massacres. The death penalty was given to 149 defendants. (It is known that one of the commanders during the atrocity was Prince Asaka, an uncle of Emperor Hirohito, but none of the Emperor's family was ever tried for war crimes).
German business man and Nazi Party member, John Rabe, who worked for Siemens in Nanking, became a hero to the Chinese when he established a seven square mile Safety Zone in the western side of the city to help protect civilians from the rampaging Japanese. Showing his Swastika armband and huge Nazi flags that adorned important buildings, the Japanese troops were reluctant to enter the zone. Known as the 'Good Nazi' he is reported to have saved the lives of over 200,000 Chinese civilians and soldiers. John Rabe died of a stroke in 1950 in Germany.
YELLOW RIVER FLOOD (1938)
During the Sino-Japanese war, as Japanese forces moved west towards the railroad junction of Chengchow, there to meet up with other Japanese units advancing on Hankow, the Chinese Nationalists blew up the flood dykes of the Yellow River. The resulting flood inundated three provinces and forty-four counties. Between four and five thousand villages and eleven towns were flooded. A total of 3,911,354 people were displaced. Altogether 893,303 lives were lost through drowning. The Chinese Nationalists blamed this atrocity on the invading Japanese. The dikes were rebuilt in 1946 and 1947 and Yellow River returned to its pre-1938 course.
HONG KONG ATROCITIES (December 25, 1941)
The lush island of Hong Kong, thirty-two square miles in area, was formally ceded to Great Britain by the Treaty of Nanking in 1842. Around Christmas, 1941, the peace and tranquillity of this island paradise was shattered when the troops of General Ito Takeo defeated the gallant soldiers of Britain, Canada, and India, and detachments of various other nationalities. Intoxicated with the spirit of victory, the Japanese troops showed no mercy to their victims. At Eucliff, fifty-three prisoners were shot, bayoneted, some beheaded and their bodies rolled down the cliff. On Christmas morning, around 200 drunken Japanese approached St. Stephen's College, now a sanctuary for ninety-six wounded soldiers. Barring the front door was the head medic, Dr. George Black. 'You can't come in here' he called out, 'this is a hospital'. With deliberate aim, one of the soldiers raised his rifle and shot the doctor through the head. As the drunken mob surged into the hospital ward, the body of Dr Black was repeatedly bayoneted as he lay at the door. In the wards, a massacre of unprecedented ferocity took place. The Japanese ripped the bandages off the wounded patients and plunged their bayonets into the amputated arms and legs before finishing them off with a bullet. In half an hour fifty-six wounded soldiers had been massacred while the nursing staff looked on helplessly. The female nurses were then led away, to a fate one can only imagine. The patients and staff who had survived the slaughter were then forced to carry the bodies and bloodied mattresses to the grounds outside where a huge funeral pyre was prepared and lit from the college desks and cupboards which had been smashed up for firewood. Similar atrocities was enacted at the Jockey Club in Happy Valley which had been turned into a hospital and at the Salesian Mission at Shau Kei Wan. Atrocities were committed at various locations throughout the colony including the rape of thousands of women and young girls. On this day, any misconceptions the world had that Japan was a civilized nation, disappeared into thin air.
THE LAHA AIRFIELD EXECUTIONS (February 9, 1943)
Two graves, about five metres apart, were dug in a wooded area near the village of Tawiri adjacent to Laha airstrip on Ambon Island, The graves were circular in shape, six metres in diameter and three metres deep. Soon after 6pm, a group of Australian and Dutch prisoners of war, their arms tied securely behind them, were brought to the 