world+war+II

period : 2

 * ==Scarred by history: The Rape of Nanjing==

notes & ccq's

 * Between December 1937 and March 1938 one of the worst massacres in modern times took place. Japanese troops captured the Chinese city of Nanjing


 * ====Estimates made by historians and charity organisations in the city which was between 250,000 and 300,000 people were killed and many of them were the women and the children.====
 * ====The number of women raped was said by Westerners who were there to be 20,000, and there were widespread accounts of civilians being hacked to death====


 * CCQ'S**
 * ====In 1931, Japan invaded Chinese Manchuria - there was a bombing incident at a railway controlled by Japanese interests.====


 * ====The following years saw Japan consolidate its hold - China suffered civil war between communists and the nationalists of the Kuomintang. The latter were led by General Chiang Kai-shek, whose capital was at Nanjing.====
 * ====japenese again had initial success - but once again there was then there was a period of successful Chinese defence before the Japanese broke through at Shanghai and swiftly moved on to Nanjing.====
 * ====After the Second World War was over, one of the Japanese soldiers who was in Nanjing spoke about what he had seen -"There were about 37 old men, old women and children. We captured them and gathered them in a square." "There was a woman holding a child on her right arm... and another one on her left."====