The Panjiayu massacre () was a massacre conducted by the

Imperial Japanese Army The was the official ground-based armed force of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945. It was controlled by the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office and the Ministry of the Army, both of which were nominally subordinate to the Emperor o ...

on January 25, 1941 in Panjiayu,

Hebei Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...

, China. An estimated 1,298 of the 1,700 people living in Panjiayu were murdered. This tragedy was an example of the

Three Alls Policy The Three Alls Policy (, ja, 三光作戦 Sankō Sakusen) was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China during World War II, the three "alls" being . This policy was designed as retaliation against the Chinese for the Communist-led Hundr ...

by the Japanese army in the

Second Sino-Japanese War The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) or War of Resistance (Chinese term) was a military conflict that was primarily waged between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. The war made up the Chinese theater of the wider Pacific Th ...

. The Chinese government built a memorial hall in that village in 1998. This massacre was the result of detailed information gathering and analysis conducted by General

Yasuji Okamura was a general of the Imperial Japanese Army, and commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Army from November 1944 to the end of World War II. He was tried but found not guilty of any war crimes by the Shanghai War Crimes Tribunal after the ...

, who decreed that villages suspected of harboring or abetting the Chinese communist forces were to be completely destroyed as part of creating a buffer no-man's land around areas controlled by Japanese forces. In these "no-man's lands," nothing living, and no available shelters, should exist. As part of the strategy, the Japanese deliberately attacked and massacred the village on the Chinese New Year's Day of 1941.

References

Japanese war crimes Second Sino-Japanese War crimes 1941 in Japan Mass murder in 1941 1941 in China Massacres in 1941 Massacres in China History of Hebei January 1941 events 1941 crimes in China 1941 murders in China {{World-War-II-stub