Nanking
If you'd all please take your seats,
we can get started.
George Fitch, Christmas Eve, Nanking,
China, 1937.
What I am about to relate is a story
which I feel must be told,
even if it is seen by only a few.
I cannot rest until I have told it and,
perhaps fortunately,
I am one of a very few
who are in a position to tell it.
It is not complete, only a part of the whole,
and God alone knows
when it will be finished.
I pray it may be soon,
but I am afraid it is going to go on
for many months to come.
I believe it has no parallel
in modern history.
Bob Wilson.
I was born and grew up here in China.
My parents were both missionaries.
I went away to medical school at Harvard,
but I came back here to live,
and practice medicine.
Nanking is my home.
Minnie Vautrin. Dean of Ginling
Women's College in Nanking.
I'm from Secor, Illinois,
a small farming town on the prairie.
John Rabe.
on business, over 30 years ago.
I married my childhood sweetheart
from Germany,
and we raised our two children here.
For the last six years, I've been director
here in Nanking, the capital.
March of Time newsreel, August, 1937.
"Today, out of the Far East,
come grim messages of a new conflict."
" The gory chronicle of Japan's war
to crush all of China..."
and gain for herself
sole mastery of the Orient.
Shanghai tastes war at its worst.
For, in a war of today,
there is a new element:
a fearsome, haphazard, modern fighting
that takes its toll on peaceful cities
and their non-combatant populations.
We always knew Japan wanted China.
I knew it since I was little.
"Japan wants to conquer China because
we have all the land and all the wealth."
And we were right next door.
Everywhere, dugouts can be seen.
In some places,
they are as close as every 200 feet.
Just as you would show
your rose garden
to your friends when they call,
now it's customary
to take your friends to your trenches
and caves, to ask their opinion.
Today, we had a genuine thrill.
The first air raid
that any of us had ever experienced.
It probably won't be the last.
During the worst of the bombing,
on the 19th and 20th of September,
I sat with my Chinese
in our homemade dugout,
which is certainly not bomb-proof,
but at least provides protection
against shrapnel and bomb fragments.
Out in the garden, we've also spread
a 20-by-20-foot piece of canvas,
with a swastika painted on it.
In the long hours
of crouching in the dugout,
during the recent bombardment,
to take my mind off things
with a little music.
And they were playing
Beethoven's "Funeral March"!
Then, to make matters worse,
they announced to their listeners,
"This music is kindly dedicated to you
by the Shanghai Funeral Directors."
Most of the shops
on the business streets are locked,
and the city has a deserted and forlorn look.
The glances cast at me as much as say,
"What? Are you still here?"
September 25th.
This has been a terrible day.
Bombs seem to be raining around.
Nanking was subjected
has now risen to 39.
Gallons of civilian blood flowed today.
Under such circumstances, can I...
May I cut and run?
I don't think so.
Anyone who has ever sat in the dugout and
held a trembling Chinese child in each hand
through the long hours of an air raid
can understand what I feel.
The rich are fleeing.
The poor remain behind.
They don't know where to go.
They don't have the means to flee.
Aren't they in danger
of being slaughtered in great numbers?
Shouldn't one make
an attempt to help them?
There's a question of morality here.
And, so far,
I haven't been able to sidestep it.
Tuesday evening, we took our entire
hospital staff to Shokwan Station,
where about 1,200 Chinese soldiers
lay around.
We found the soldiers
scattered thickly at the station.
Some men were in great agony.
One of the men had his leg shot off
up near the hip.
The wound had not been attended.
The odor of his flesh,
I can never, never forget.
When I reached home,
I first washed with Lysol, and then soap,
but the odor still remained.
I used cold cream,
and then later perfume, but...
All day today, I am still conscious of it.
At 9:
00 p.m., a letter cameby special messenger from the Embassy.
They are asking all men and women
to evacuate Nanking.
It was a very clear, emphatic statement.
Standing offshore
from the doomed city is
the United States gunboat Panay
of the Yangtze Patrol.
Fleeing from the beleaguered city,
a number of Americans and others
arrive at the riverside,
hoping to get aboard the Panay.
Diplomats representing the United States
government pack important state papers
and head for the Panay in cars prominently
marked with the American colors.
I personally feel that I cannot leave.
Men are not asked to leave their ships
when they are in danger,
and women are not asked
If Americans leave,
a great many of the Chinese would go, also.
The hospital would have to close,
or be operated by military authorities.
One can't help feeling that leaving right now
would be passing up an opportunity
for service of the highest kind.
At 1:
30 this afternoon,After a brief goodbye to the passengers,
I take the launch,
which is honking impatiently now,
back to Shokwan.
My last bridge is burned.
The city
is practically deserted now,
except for the poor,
who have no place to go.
This morning, after the service began,
The pastor asked,
"Shall we continue, or go to a dugout?"
One man said, "Continue." And we did so.
Life is real. Life is earnest these days.
Slowly, the heavy bombers drew near.
When the bombing could be plainly heard
inside the city,
and asked us all to pray silently for peace.
The Chinese appear to regard Shanghai
as the main theater of war,
because Shanghai protects Nanking.
But for how long?
Smoke-filled skies
signal to the world
the final chapter
of the greatest war drama yet filmed.
The actual fall of Shanghai!
At 10:
00 a.m.,the order came.
"Regiment is to pursue enemy
towards Nanking."
"All troops have to be ready immediately."
General Matsui said Nanking
is the capital of China,
and our capturing of it
will be an international event.
With General Matsui's principle in mind,
we began immediately to make our plans.
From the Tokyo
Nichi-Nichi newspaper,
reported on the road to Nanking.
"There are two
young commissioned officers
"who have undertaken a contest
to cut down a hundred with their swords.
" It is said that one man has already killed
" When we reporters came upon
the two of them conferring,
"second lieutenant Mukai said,
"'I'll probably cut down 100 by the time
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"Nanking" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 21 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/nanking_14472>.
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