Analyzing the “Photographic Evidence” of the Nanking Massacre

half open. Since Murase most likely took his photograph on December 16 or 17, he couldhave entered the city through the passage “a.”If his unit had to stay outside the city walls under an order, it was most likelybecause of a practical reason. Since two other passages of the gate were still blocked bydebris, its removal required the use of vehicles. Thus, Murase’s unit was outside the citywalls probably because it was assigned to transport that debris out from the city gatepassages. Another possible reason was that the Japanese army command allowed onlythose units assigned with specific missions to enter the city and prohibited the entry ofothers. This restriction, partly for the security of the civilians, also required each unit tobe quartered only at a designated location.Although Murase noted a rumor of the massacre perpetrated by the Japanesetroops, he did not record when and from whom he heard it. Nor did he verify that rumor.In reality, he certainly saw dead bodies but did not witness the actual scene of the killing.Commenting on Photos 138 and 139, which he himself took, Murase said,When the restriction on my unit’s movement was finally lifted, I went to theXiakuan wharf to receive some cargos. There, I saw the river shore filledwith corpses. Buried partially in the mud of the shore, they covered aboutten meters from the shore. I wondered if that was the very spot where themassacre as rumored had taken place. There were practically no uniformedmen, and most of them were plain-clothed civilians that seemingly includedsome women and children.His wordings like “I wondered . . .” and “seemingly included some women andchildren” suggest that he presented only his speculations. The readers, however, may welljudge these scenes depicted on the photographs as an aftermath of the massacre.Whether or not those bodies shown on the photos belonged to the victims of thealleged massacre is, however, an open question. One may even question whether or notthere was really a massacre in the Xiakuan area.Contingents of the Japanese army and navy made their final approach to Xiakuanon December 13. According to an account which Hashimoto Mochiyuki of the Japanesenavy contributed to the Kaikō [ex-Japanese army officers’ association] magazine, “SomeChinese soldiers held on to their rifles or machine-guns, but none of them were wearinguniforms” in the Xiakuan area. The Japanese troops encountered those plain-clothedChinese soldiers who were about to begin their attempt to swim across the Yangzi River.Referring to these Chinese soldiers, Sekiguchi Kōzō of the Japanese navy said in hisrecollection published on the same magazine, “None of them displayed a white flag orraised their hands to surrender to us.” As long as the opponent indicated no sign ofsurrendering, the Japanese forces had to continue their military actions. In response, theChinese military men either counterattacked by firing their weapons, or tried to escape onboard some floating objects like rafts or by swimming.Kajiya Takeo, who was a sergeant of the Nanking second anchorage unit,described the aftermath of this battle in his field diary. In his diary entry of December 22,222