Nanking, rape of (correctly Nanjing) (1937). Japanese troops captured Nanking in December 1937 after Chiang Kai-Shek was forced to abandon it. The city became the scene of the worst atrocities of the war as Japanese soldiers were left free to murder, rape, burn, and loot at will. Several hundred thousand civilians were killed and brutalized. The officers responsible were hanged after 1945, but the Japanese government only very recently permitted mention of it in school textbooks and, elliptically, apologized for it. It did not even succeed in its intention of encouraging other Chinese cities to capitulate, but rather hardened resistance.
— Stephen Turnbull
