893.01 Manchuria/851
The Consul General at Mukden (Myers) to the Minister in China (Johnson) 89
Sir: I have the honor to refer to my despatch No. 707 of December 15, 1932,90 relative to the so-called “Fushun Massacre”, and to submit the following additional information, which, it is believed, constitutes the most credible account yet obtained of the incident.
A reliable American business man, well-known to the Consulate [Page 177] General, who is in charge of the Manchurian sales operations of a large American concern, reports that shortly after the date of the “Fushun Massacre”, he took occasion to ask a Japanese assistant why the firm’s business at three villages near Fushun had apparently collapsed. His question was received in an amused manner by the assistant and other Japanese present, who explained that the villages had been destroyed by Japanese troops. Further questioning elicited the following information, which was told with freedom approaching enthusiasm, without the slightest indication that the tellers were concealing or desired to conceal any part of the pertinent facts.
A group of bandits laid plans to sabotage the Fushun Collieries. They conceived the scheme of facilitating the attainment of their design by having some of their number borrow miners’ identification tags, with which all Fushun miners are provided, thus obtain entrance to the collieries, overcome the guards and let in their comrades. This scheme was successfully carried out. The Japanese Military, however, later discovered the trick and found that the identification tags had been secured by the bandits from miners residing in three villages. The plea of these miners that the bandits had coerced them into giving over the tags was disregarded. Troops summoned out the entire populations of the three villages, totalling about three thousand persons, separated the men from the women and children, marched off the former, shot them to a man, burned the corpses, and destroyed the villages. In reply to inquiry, the Japanese informants stated that the total number of men shot was somewhere between 600 and 1000.
While the above information confirms the culpability of the Japanese military officer responsible for the drastic action taken, it also supports this office’s previous conclusion that estimates of the victims in the neighborhood of three thousand were greatly exaggerated.
Respectfully yours,
- Copy transmitted to the Department by the Consul General at Mukden in his unnumbered despatch of February 14; received March 13.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1932, vol. iv, p. 435.↩