NANKING FALLS TO JAPANESE CENTRAL CHINA AREA ARMY, December 13, 1937.

The first Japanese air raids against Nanking took place in August 1937.

Following the Japanese breakout from Shanghai in November 1937, Japanese forces raced up the Yangtze valley against minimal opposition from the routed and panic-stricken Chinese forces.

On the recommendation of their German advisors, the Chinese had spent over a million yuan to establish a line of fortifications in the Yangtze Valley inland of Shanghai ("the Far Eastern Hindenburg Line") to hold up a Japanese advance into the heart of China, but this was abandoned without a fight. By 3 December the Japanese had seized Tanyang, just fifty miles from the capital.

The Chinese defense lines were established too close to the city and the Japanese were within artillery range of the city before they even came in contact with the defenses.

On 6 December the main infantry assault commenced from the east and south, and took just five days to break into the city.

The subsequent "Rape of Nanking" was one of the great atrocities of the Second World War and the greatest single atrocity committed by the Japanese.

Estimates vary wildly, but the best estimate is that about 200,000 persons were murdered. In addition, at least 20,000 rapes of women took place, and about a third of the city was gutted by fires set by looting soldiers.

This was not a collapse of discipline brought on by heavy casualties: The division most strongly implicated, 16 Division, had not fought at Shanghai and had suffered relatively light casualties in the Nanking campaign. The commander of Central China Area Army, Matsui Iwane, was later hanged as a war criminal.

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