793.94/12134: Telegram
The Ambassador in Japan (Grew) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 19—7 a.m.]
39. My British colleague has given me for my confidential information a paraphrase of a telegram dated January 15, from the British Embassy at Shanghai reporting actions of Japanese troops at Nanking. As we have had no detailed reports on this subject from Shanghai or elsewhere I am cabling the text which was furnished to me as follows:
“I have been supplied confidentially with two separate and completely reliable reports, from an American missionary at Nanking and a missionary doctor at Wuhu who remained at their posts when the Japanese entered these cities, regarding the atrocities committed by the Japanese Army. Reports quote approximately 100 authenticated cases of rape in the American University Buildings in Nanking in the first few days of the occupation.
The Reverend Boynton of the National Christian Council who brought me these reports stated that the Japanese Embassy officials who reached Nanking shortly after the entry of the Japanese troops were horrified when they saw the orgy of drunkenness, murder, rape and robbery, which was going on openly in and around the refugee zone. Failing to make any impression on the military commander, whose attitude of callous indifference makes it probable that the army was deliberately turned loose on the cit yas a punitive measure, [Page 38] and despairing of getting cable through to Tokyo owing to military control, Embassy officials had even suggested to the missionaries that the latter should try and get publicity for the facts in Japan so that the Japanese Government would be forced by public opinion to curb the army.
I have been promised eye witness reports from Soochow and Hang-chow where the behavior of the Japanese troops was equally bad and stories, apparently authenticated, regarding their behavior, in the neighborhood of Shanghai are now coming in”.
Repeated to Peiping for relay to Hankow.