China-based reporter Hallett Abend (1884 – 1955) explained to American readers what type of enemy they were facing:
“Japan has been blood-drunk for more than a decade – ever since the Japanese invaded Manchuria in September, 1931. Without a pause, they have been killing and burning and raping in China. In four and a half years of warfare there, the Japanese have taken almost no prisoners. No one knows of the existence of a single concentration or internment camp in all of Japanese-occupied China. Chinese prisoners of war are shot, excepting captured officers or flyers from whom information may be extorted by torture, after which they are shot in the back of the head. The like is done to Chinese wounded left on the battlefields.”</
