The so-called “Hundred-Man Killing Contest” was later acknowledged by the newspaper itself to be a wartime fabrication.
Yet, influenced by postwar journalism and publications, this falsehood came to be taught as historical fact in Japanese classrooms.
This article examines how unverified reporting distorted historical education.

May 10, 2016

What follows is a continuation of the previous chapter.

Emphasis within the text is mine.

The high school Japanese history teacher’s guide published by Sanseidō (first edition, March of the first year of the Heisei era) cites, as “Supplementary Materials: Testimonies of the Nanjing Massacre,” statements from Honda’s Journey to China, including the testimony of Jiang Genfu, who spoke of the killing of 100,000 civilians by machine guns.

In the “Explanation” section, it describes “a killing contest between two (former Imperial Japanese Army) officers to see who could kill one hundred Chinese first,” presenting the so-called “Hundred-Man Killing Contest” as historical fact.

Honda based this account on articles reported by the predecessor of the Mainichi Shimbun, claiming them as stories told by Jiang.
However, a former cameraman who was involved in photographing the two lieutenants for the Tokyo Nichi Nichi Shimbun has himself denied the story, stating that it was “an impossible tale.”

The Mainichi Shimbun itself later repudiated its own past reporting in The Complete Record of the Shōwa Era, published in the first year of the Heisei era, clearly stating that “the Hundred-Man Killing article was entirely unfounded,” and it has since become the prevailing view that the story was a fabricated article created to boost wartime morale.

Nevertheless, due to the influence of Journey to China, this fiction has long been treated as “historical fact” in school classrooms.

More recently, at the Japan Teachers’ Union’s national educational research conference held in Toyama Prefecture in Heisei 24, a “peace education” teaching practice using the Hundred-Man Killing as its subject was reported.

“Japan invaded China and killed many Chinese people.”

“In wartime, the more people of the enemy country you killed, the more medals you received and the more you were praised.”

Students who received lessons using newspaper articles and photographs of the Hundred-Man Killing expressed impressions such as, “I think the Chinese cannot forgive what Japan did to them,” and “Facing this painful past and confronting it is a form of atonement.”

At the third-party committee established by the Asahi Shimbun in Heisei 26 to review its comfort women reporting, the Hundred-Man Killing was cited as a similar case to the reporting on Seiji Yoshida, who falsely testified about “comfort women hunts.”

The committee stated:
“Could soldiers during wartime really act entirely on their own?
Is a game without an ‘umpire’ even possible?
Though the story should have seemed questionable upon even a little reflection, it was reported as fact and came to be widely believed.”

Can it not be said that both the teachers who taught a distorted view of history, having been led by Asahi’s reporting which they accepted as fact, and the students who were taught it, are themselves victims?
(Honorifics omitted)