During this six week massacre, there were daily accounts of rape. Anywhere between preteen to the elderly to the pregnant were targeted. After being raped, the Chinese women were killed by the Japanese, often by mutilation. It happened in private and in public, but it happened more often in public during the day and in front of family members. Some women were forced into military prostitution. Young girls were sliced open to better accommodate the soldiers and sometimes things were brutally shoved inside of the women as a form of torture. It wasn't unheard of for the women to be gang raped by groups of men either. Women were raped so brutally that there was often times irreparable damage. To escape the horror of being raped, women dressed as men or the ill.
It is a horrible story to relate; I know not where to begin nor to end. Never have I heard or read of such brutality. Rape: We estimate at least 1,000 cases a night and many by day. In case of resistance or anything that seems like disapproval there is a bayonet stab or a bullet. (James McCallum, letter to his family, December 19, 1937)
One women named Li Xouying, knocked herself unconscious in an attempt to escape rape. When she came-to, she was being held in a basement under the watch of a Japanese soldier. She fought back by grabbing his bayonet and using it against him. She used him as a shield when reinforcements came. She was, however, stabbed thirty-seven times. She had wounds in her eyes, her face, and her pregnant stomach. She miscarried in the hospital, but survived and has recounted her story. (Chang 97-99).
Not only were women raped, but the Japanese toyed with civilians for entertainment. There are reports of the Japanese forcing family members to commit incest, monks were forced to rape women after leading a life of celibacy, and men were forced to have sex with corpses. The Japanese would execute any who resisted.