Analyzing the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre

Photo C Photo 135Photo 135: Gahō kindai hyakunen-shi, vol. 5, p. 1146.Photo C: A Japanese version of Edgar Snow’s Battle for Asia, pp. 44-45.The same photographs were reprinted on the Japanese translation of Edgar Snow’sBattle for Asia published in 1956 as shown on Photo C. Its caption says, “These threephotographs depict a group of captives who could not be identified either as ex-militarymen or as civilians, and the bodies of those who were executed.” RON-YY includes onlyone photograph at the bottom with a caption that identifies the dead bodies as “Victims of akilling on the outskirts of Nanking.”A closer look at these three photographs, however, reveals some facts that maycontradict the content of these captions. Although the photograph at the top shows aJapanese soldier holding a gun fixed with a bayonet, those POWs were not tied in theirhands. Some of them are seen even smiling. The POWs depicted on the middlephotograph were not tied in their hands, either. Furthermore, the Japanese soldiers whoseem to be watching them are not carrying any arms. The third photo at the bottom, thesize of which is quite larger than the other two, shows dead bodies at an unknown location.Viewers who look at these three in sequence may well conjecture a dismal story of theex-Chinese soldiers at a Japanese POW camp, that is, those POWs photographed on thefirst and second images were in the end executed as shown on the third.211