SDHF Newsletter No.193 The Nanjing Incident-Japanese eyewitness 5

The Nanjing Incident: Japanese Eyewitness Accounts
-Testimony from 48 Japanese Who Were There-
By Ara Ken’ichi
No. 5: Chapter 2 Nanjing, as Observed by Japanese Soldiers
1. The Army, 19)～21)

December 15, 2017

We present No. 5 in this series, which contains Chapter 2: Nanjing, as Observed by Japanese Soldiers, 1. The Army, 19) – 21).
In the Section 1, The Army, ten army officers who were involved in the Nanking battle in the place of Nanking.
The author writes in the preface: “Those (soldiers) who could explore and broadly examine Nanjing and understand the situation in Nanjing were not lower ranking soldiers but senior officers.” So, he chose middle to higher class officers (Captain to Colonel) as an interviewee.
No.5 covers three officers: Major Yoshinaga Sunao (吉永朴), Staff Officer, 10th Army, Major Okada Yuji (岡田酉次), Staff, Special Duty Section of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army and Captain Onishi Hajime (大西一), Staff Officer of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army.
Captain Onishi was Staff Officer of the Shanghai Expeditionary Army and then Chief of Special Duty Organization in Nanjing, which took care about the life of Chinese people. So, he must be most knowledgeable about Nanjing at that time. He, of course, completely deny there were a sort of Massacre in Nanjing, as unimaginable thing.
He says “I know the truth–I, who knows the truth, must write the truth, so I thought and tried to write the truth. However, people around me told me that it was too late, that people would simply look at this as an excuse and nobody would believe me anymore, so I was discouraged.”　　　

URL: https://www.sdh-fact.com/book-article/1088/

PDF: https://www.sdh-fact.com/CL/Ara-Nanjing-5.pdf

Questions are welcome.

MOTEKI Hiromichi, Acting Chairman
for KASE Hideaki, Chairman
Society for the Dissemination of Historical Fact