In December 1937, the Imperial Japanese Army invaded Nanjing, China. They killed 300,000 of the 600,000 people in the Chinese capital. The six-week Japanese rampage is now known as the Rape of Nanjing and the worst atrocity during World War II in the European or Pacific theaters of war. Before Nanjing was invaded, a fierce battle in Shanghai began the war in the summer. of 1937. The Chinese engaged in a shocking battle against Japan. This was slightly embarrassing for Japan because it predicted that it would conquer all of China in just three months. The Battle of Shanghai alone lasted just over five months. This infuriated the Japanese and increased the thirst for revenge that carried all the way to Nanjing. After defeating the Chinese at Shanghai in November, 50,000 soldiers of the Japanese Army marched towards Nanjing. In Nanjing the soldiers were poorly led and disorganized, while Shanghai had a well-commanded and tightly organized group of soldiers. Although they outnumbered the Japanese and had plenty of ammunition, they collapsed under the ferocity of the Japanese attack. The Chinese were forced to retreat as quickly as they could. After just 4 days of fighting, Japanese troops broke into the city on December 13, 1937, with orders to "kill all prisoners". The Japanese's first concern was to eliminate any threat, including all of Nanjing's 90,000 surrendered soldiers. For the Japanese, surrender was an unthinkable act of cowardice, and the ultimate violation of the military code of honor had been drumming into their minds since childhood. For this reason they looked at the Chinese prisoners of war with complete disgust, considering them animals not worthy of life. The extermination of Chinese prisoners of war began after trucks t...... middle of paper ...... international safe zone, using red cross flags to demarcate the areas. These Westerners became the unsung heroes of Nanjing, working day and night to the point of exhaustion to help the Chinese. They also wrote down their impressions of the daily scenes they witnessed, including one describing Nanjing as "hell on earth." Another wrote of Japanese soldiers: "I had no idea that such cruel people existed in the modern world." Approximately 300,000 Chinese civilians took refuge within their safety zone. Almost all of the people who failed to reach the Zone during the Rape of Nanjing eventually died. Works Cited Chang, Iris. The Rape of Nanjing: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II. New York, NY: Basic, 1997. Print."Rape of Nanking 1937-38." The place of history. The History Place™, 2000. Web. May 18 2014. .