Mark Gagnon

Wounded soldiers were dragged from hospital beds and killed on the floor.

Others who surrendered under white flags, doing everything the laws of war demanded, were marched to open ground and shot anyway.

All the rules meant to protect these prisoners and these surrendered soldiers and civilians just didn't exist.

Even General Matsui Iwane, the Japanese commander, admitted days later, "...my men have done something very wrong and extremely regrettable."

But by then, the violence had taken on a life of its own.

No apology whispered or shouted or officially decreed was enough to stop what had already begun.

And no part of the massacre was more brutal or targeted than the violence against the women.

Japanese soldiers hunted them through homes and streets, just dragging them out regardless of their age.

Begging didn't matter.

Resisting made it worse.

Many were assaulted or killed on the spot, while others were taken into barracks or these comfort stations where the abuse just continued.

Women were attacked everywhere, sometimes by dozens of soldiers, and many more were murdered or mutilated in ways that are

honestly just too horrific to describe.

This is often why it is called the rape of Nanjing.

I mean, for the sake of YouTube and not just getting completely blasted off the platform, we will continue to call it the Nanjing massacre, but that's why that term exists.

A woman by

the name of Li Jiuying, who was seven months pregnant at the time, tried to fight off the soldiers who stormed her home, and they stabbed her 37 times and left her to die.

Miraculously, she lived, but lost her child in the process and carried the scars, both physical and emotional, for the rest of her life.

And she actually became one of the few women willing to speak publicly about what had happened.

Jia Shukin was only eight when soldiers entered her home.