Analyzing the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre

Shanxi Province, and Nomonhan during his tour of duty before his homecoming in January1940. He had a part of “some 3,000 photographs” which he had taken during that timeperiod published in 1987 under the title of Watashi no jūgun Chūgoku sensen: MuraseMoriyasu shashinshū—Ichi heishi ga utsushita senjō no kiroku [My battle record at theChina front: Photo collection of Murase Moriyasu—record of battlefields as photographedby a soldier]. The following is an excerpt from the book’s postscript that sums up how itwas published.In the summer of 1983, Mr. Satō of zenshōren [a federation of Japanesesmall businesses] secretariat asked me to contribute an article—as well asphotographs if any—to the federation’s monthly magazine. One of thesephotographs printed on the magazine caught the attention of Mr. Tominagaof the Japan-China Friendship Association, who subsequently displayed it ata war photograph exhibit at a church in Tokyo. Then, Nameshida Takashiof the Mainichi Newspaper saw it and had it reprinted on the paper. Theresult was the media uproar.Some 170 photographs on Murase’s book are mostly snapshots of Japanesesoldiers, localities where they were stationed, and aftermaths of battles. Some of them,however, attracted media attention as photographic evidence of the alleged Nankingmassacre.A question worth asking here is whether or not Murase witnessed the allegedmassacre himself. Murase entered the following passage at the beginning of the sectionthat listed the photographs of Nanking: “As we passed through each village on our way tothe frontline, we began to see the bodies of those who had been massacred.” One may,however, question the truthfulness of his statement that he witnessed the remains of “thosewho had been massacred.”Certainly, more dead bodies one was likely to see, the closer he approached to thefrontline. One of the 6 th Division veterans said in his recollection, “The piled up bodies ofthe enemy, barbed wires that had been severed, and numerous weapons and uniformsabandoned—all of these testify eloquently to the severity of the fighting until yesterday.”Thus, contemporary observers all considered these bodies as combat casualties in theaftermath of military engagements in the frontline.Although Murase claimed to have witnessed the “bodies of massacred people,”that he considered them as the civilians whom the Japanese troops had massacred was anarbitrary conjecture. The perpetrators may well have been the Chinese. Furthermore,Chinese civilians were likely to evacuate their residences when their locality was about tobecome a battlefield.A sad reality of war is that combat deaths result from it. By disregarding this fact,Murase concluded that those dead bodies that he had witnessed belonged to the victims ofthe Japanese atrocities. Murase went on to say, “For unknown reasons, our supply columnwas not permitted to the inside of the city walls for two weeks. There was a rumororiginating from unconfirmed sources that a large-scale killing was in progress inside thecity walls.”220