Japanese soldiers burn Chinese civilians to death

Photo released on Aug 19, 2015 by the State Archives Administration of China on its website shows the Chinese version of an excerpt from Japanese war criminal Kiyoshi Shimosaka's handwritten confession. [Photo/Xinhua]

He also confessed to arresting a peasant aged around 30 and a woman of similar age in July 1940 in Hubei's Jingmen county. Together with companions, Shimosaka threatened them with a bayonet and forced them to have sexual intercourse, and "during the sexual intercourse, a companion bayoneted them at the back and killed them."

Shimosaka captured one peasant and used a 6-inch knife to stab him in the chest three times, thus cruelly killing him in August 1941 in Hubei's Jiangling county, according to the confessions.

From July 1941 to March 1942 in Jingmen county, he abused two Korean women aged around 20, 15 times each, he wrote.

Shimosaka and companions also "gang-raped" two Chinese women at a sentry post in Jiangling county in July 1942.

He wrote, in May 1943 in Yichang county, Hubei Province, together with one companion, he took a resident aged around 35 to the fields and used a katana to "behead him, then split his head in two."