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Hundred man killing contest
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1937 event during the Japanese invasion of China
The Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun's news coverage of the event on 13 December 1937. Mukai (left) and Noda (right). The bold headline on the right reads, "Hundred-man killing 'super record': Mukai 106 – 105 Noda: The two second lieutenants to continue the contest in overtime".<br>This article is part of the series on theNanjing Massacre
The cross at the Memorial Hall, displaying the estimated duration and death toll.
Prelude
Battle of Nanjing (1937)
Nanjing Safety Zone<br>International Committee
Perpetrators
Empire of Japan
Imperial Japanese Army<br>Central China Area
Emperor Hirohito
Prince Yasuhiko Asaka
Isamu Chō
Kesago Nakajima
Iwane Matsui
Moritake Tanabe
Hisao Tani
Sasaki Tōichi
Heisuke Yanagawa
Japanese war crimes
Hundred man killing contest
International Military Tribunal for the Far East
Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal
Historiography
Death toll
Denial<br>History textbook
The Truth About Nanjing
Memorial Day
Memorial Hall
Memorial Sites
Population of Nanjing in December of 1937
Yasukuni Shrine controversies
Films
The Battle of China
Black Sun: The Nanking Massacre
City of Life and Death
Dead to Rights
Don't Cry, Nanking
The Flowers of War
John Rabe
Nanking
Books
American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking
The Good Man of Nanking
The Rape of Nanking
Tokyo
The hundred-man killing contest (also known as the Contest to kill 100 people using a sword or Competition that shall determine who is more proficient at slaying one-hundred men exclusively through the art of the blade ;[1] Japanese: 百人斬り競争, romanized: hyakunin-giri kyōsō; Chinese: 百人斬比賽; pinyin: Bǎirén zhǎn bǐsài) was a sensationalized story published first in prominent Japanese newspapers including the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun and Osaka Mainichi Shimbun in late 1937 during the Japanese invasion of China. The articles described two Imperial Japanese Army officers, Toshiaki Mukai and Tsuyoshi Noda, competing to see who could kill 100 people with a sword first while advancing toward Nanjing. Reporters covered the "contest" as if it was a sporting event, complete with running tallies and competitive banter.[2] Later, other Japanese newspapers had picked up and reprinted the stories. However modern historians widely regard these newspaper accounts as Japanese wartime propaganda or exaggeration.[1][3] The original accounts printed in the newspaper described the killings as hand-to-hand combat; however, historians have suggested that they were most likely a part of Japanese mass killings of Chinese prisoners of war.[4][5]
Both officers were later convicted by the Nanjing War Crimes Tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity due to their involvement in atrocities, including the unlawful killing of Chinese POWs and civilians during the Nanjing Massacre, and were executed in 1948. They were not convicted solely on the basis of the contest articles.[6]
The news stories were rediscovered in the 1970s, which sparked a larger controversy over Japanese war crimes in China, particularly the Nanjing Massacre.
Wartime accounts<br>[edit]
Mukai at Sugamo Prison after his arrest by the U.S. Army<br>Noda at Sugamo Prison after his arrest by the U.S. Army
From November 30, 1937, to December 13, 1937, the Osaka Mainichi Shimbun and its sister newspaper the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun covered the hundred-man killing contest in four articles, with the last two translated in the Japan Advertiser. According to the reports, the two Japanese Army second lieutenants Toshiaki Mukai (向井 敏明) and Tsuyoshi Noda (野田 毅) were vying with one another to be the first to kill 100 people with a sword, as the Imperial Japanese Army advanced from Shanghai to Nanjing, prior to the infamous Nanjing Massacre.
According to the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun's report on December 13, 1937, Toshiaki Mukai said, "Without realising, we both surpassed 100 people. It was quite pleasant." Because it was difficult to determine which officer killed 100 people first and won the contest, according to journalists Asami Kazuo and Suzuki Jiro, they decided to begin another contest to kill 150 people with a sword, beginning on December 11th.[7] The Nichi Nichi headline of the story on 13 December read, "Hundred-man killing 'super record': Mukai 106 – 105 Noda: The two second lieutenants to continue the contest in overtime".[8]
Other soldiers and historians have noted the improbability of the lieutenants' heroics, which entailed killing enemy after enemy in fierce hand-to-hand combat.[9] Noda himself, on returning to his hometown, admitted this during a speech that "I killed only...