February 1945: The Rape of Manila

February 1945: The Rape of Manila

To this day, much is heard of the Rape of Nanking when the rampaging Japanese Imperial Army killed 300,000 from 1937 to 1938, and raped 20,000 women in that Chinese capital.

Pitifully few, though, in the Philippines and even fewer elsewhere, know that in Manila, in February 1945, World War II at its agonizing climax brought forth 100,000 burned, bayoneted, bombed, shelled and shrapneled dead in the span of 28 days.

Unborn babies ripped from their mothers’ wombs provided sport: thrown up in the air and caught, impaled on bayonet tips.
With rape on the streets and everywhere else, the Bayview Hotel became Manila’s rape center. After the dirty deed was done, nipples were sliced off, and bodies bayoneted open from the neck down.