Casualties The capture of Nanjing had been quicker and easier than the Japanese had foreseen.David Askew, "Defending Nanking: An Examination of the Capital Garrison Forces," Sino-Japanese Studies, April 15, 2003, 162. According to Iwane Matsui's diary, they lost only 1,953 soldiers in battle, plus 4,994 wounded.Masahiro Yamamoto, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2000), 118. Yamamoto cites Masao Terada, planning chief of Japan's 10th Army. Recent research however, suggests higher Japanese losses in the five week-long campaign to take Nanjing. According to Benjamin Lai, casualties for the IJA over the entire month-long campaign are estimated at 26,000 killed and wounded, with 18,000 casualties for the X Corps alone between 6 November and 17 December. An additional 624 killed and 876 wounded for the Japanese Navy makes a total of 27,500 Japanese casualties for the month long campaign. thumb|Japanese military leaders Kiyoshi Hasegawa (admiral), Iwane Matsui, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, and Heisuke Yanagawa at the Memorial Ceremony for War Dead at Nanking Airfield on December 13, 1937 Chinese casualties were undoubtedly significantly higher, though no precise figures exist on how many Chinese were killed in action. The Japanese claimed to have killed up to 84,000 Chinese soldiers during the Nanjing campaign, whereas a contemporary Chinese source claimed that their army suffered 20,000 casualties in the fighting. Masahiro Yamamoto noted that the Japanese usually inflated their opponent's body counts while the Chinese had reason to downplay the scale of their loss.Masahiro Yamamoto, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2000), 87–88. Ikuhiko Hata estimates that 50,000 Chinese soldiers were killed in combat during the entire battle whereas Jay Taylor puts the number at 70,000, and states that proportionate to the size of the force committed, such losses were greater than those suffered in the Battle of Shanghai.Michael Richard Gibson, Chiang Kai-shek’s Central Army, 1924–1938 (Washington DC: George Washington University, 1985), 388. On the other hand, Chinese scholar Sun Zhaiwei estimates Chinese combat losses at 6,000 to 10,000 men. New York Times correspondent Tillman Durdin estimated some 33,000 Chinese soldiers had died in the city of Nanjing, including 20,000 who had been executed unlawfully as prisoners of war.
Casualties The capture of Nanjing had been quicker and easier than the Japanese had foreseen.David Askew, "Defending Nanking: An Examination of the Capital Garrison Forces," Sino-Japanese Studies, April 15, 2003, 162. According to Iwane Matsui's diary, they lost only 1,953 soldiers in battle, plus 4,994 wounded.Masahiro Yamamoto, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2000), 118. Yamamoto cites Masao Terada, planning chief of Japan's 10th Army. Recent research however, suggests higher Japanese losses in the five week-long campaign to take Nanjin:g. According to Benjamin Lai, casualties for the IJA over the entire month-long campaign are estimated at 26,000 killed and wounded, with 18,000 casualties for the X Corps alone between 6 November and 17 December. An additional 624 killed and 876 wounded for the Japanese Navy makes a total of 27,500 Japanese casualties for the month long campaign. thumb|Japanese military leaders Kiyoshi Hasegawa (admiral), Iwane Matsui, Prince Yasuhiko Asaka, and Heisuke Yanagawa at the Memorial Ceremony for War Dead at Nanking Airfield on December 13, 1937 Chinese casualties were undoubtedly significantly higher, though no precise figures exist on how many Chinese were killed in action. The Japanese claimed to have killed up to 84,000 Chinese soldiers during the Nanjing campaign, whereas a contemporary Chinese source claimed that their army suffered 20,000 casualties in the fighting. Masahiro Yamamoto noted that the Japanese usually inflated their opponent's body counts while the Chinese had reason to downplay the scale of their loss.Masahiro Yamamoto, Nanking: Anatomy of an Atrocity (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger, 2000), 87–88. Ikuhiko Hata estimates that 50,000 Chinese soldiers were killed in combat during the entire battle whereas Jay Taylor puts the number at 70,000, and states that proportionate to the size of the force committed, such losses were greater than those suffered in the Battle of Shanghai.Michael Richard Gibson, Chiang Kai-shek’s Central Army, 1924–1938 (Washington DC: George Washington University, 1985), 388. On the other hand, Chinese scholar Sun Zhaiwei estimates Chinese combat losses at 6,000 to 10,000 men. New York Times correspondent Tillman Durdin estimated some 33,000 Chinese soldiers had died in the city of Nanjing, including 20,000 who had been executed unlawfully as prisoners of war.