The Japanese Soldiers Who Competed to Kill 100 People

The Japanese Soldiers Who Competed to Kill 100 People

Two Japanese officers held a competition to see who could behead 100 people the fastest and when the score was 105-106 and no one knew who got to 100 first, they went again to 150.

Japanese officers Toshiaki Mukai (center) and Tsuyoshi Noda (right) during their war crimes trial in China. During the Nanjing massacre, they competed over who could kill a 100 people with a sword first. After

the two both killed over a hundred people, they restarted to 150, 1947

The person on the left is Gunkichi Tanaka, another Japanese officer who participated in the Nanjing massacre. He personally killed over 300 Chinese POWs and civilians with his sword.

Tanaka, 42, is the third person being executed with Mukai and Noda. Toshiaki Mukai and Takeshi Noda (1937, hundreds of victims, China)

My original post about the two (it features a photo gallery from their time as soldiers all the way up untl moments before their executions)

In 1937, during the Nanjing Massacre, Japanese officers Toshiaki Mukai and Takeshi Noda got into a contest over who could murder 100 people with a sword first. Japanese newspapers provided day-by-day coverage as if it was a sporting event. The two men both ended up killing over 100 people. Mukai killed 106 people and Noda killed 105 people.

Because of this, the men decided to restart the contest, this time racing to kil 150 people. "Mukai's blade

was slightly damaged in the competition," the Japanese

Advertiser reported. "He explained that was the result of cutting a Chinese in half, helmet and all. The contest was 'fun' he declared."

In his hometown, Noda claimed:

"Actually, I didn't kill more than four or five people in hand-to-hand combat ... We'd face an enemy trench that

we'd captured, and when we called out, "Ni, Lai-Lai!" (You, come here!), the Chinese soldiers were so stupid, they'd

rush toward us all at once. Then we'd line them up and cut them down, from one end of the line to the other.

I was praised for having killed a hundred people, but actually, almost all of them were killed in this way. The

two of us did have a contest, but afterwards. I was often asked whether it was a big deal, and I said it was no big deal..." The two officers enjoyed their fame, but it would be their

downfall. After the war, written records of the contest found their way into the documents of the International

Military Tribunal for the Far East. The two were arrested by U.S. military occupation authorities. Mukai and Noda in U.S. custody

The two men were then dropped in China, where they were immediately arrested. They were put on trial by a Chinese military tribunal. During the trial, Noda claimed the contest was a media hoax. Both men were found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and sentenced to death. On January 8, 1948, Mukai and Noda were taken to Mount Yuhuatai, just outside of the city of Nanjing. The two men were allowed a final cigarette and then marched to a selected spot. There, they were each executed by a single gunshot to the back of the head. They were both 35 years old.

In April 2003, the families of Mukai and Noda filed a defamation suit against several defendants, including

Katsuichi Honda, journalist who wrote about the Nanjing massacre. The families requested ¥36,000,000 in

compensation. On August 23, 2005, Tokyo District Court Judge Akio Doi dismissed the suit on the grounds that

"The contest did occur, and was not fabricated by the media." The judge said that while the media coverage did

include "false elements", the officers had openly admitted to racing to kill 10 people and "it is difficult to say it was

fiction." Some evidence of illing Chinese POWs (not hand-to-hand fighting) were shown by the defendants, and the court admitted the possibility of killing POWs by

SWord. In December 2006, the Supreme Court of Japan upheld

the ruling against the two families.

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