While brutally killing the prisoners of the Nationalist Army, the Japanese army also pointed their butcher knives at unarmed citizens, and in order to cover up their crimes, they strictly ordered reporters to take pictures and report on them. After the first round of massacres, the destruction of corpses and the destruction of traces of the killings were carried out.

According to the confession of Japanese Major Ota Toshio, who participated in the destruction of the body on the bank of the Yangtze River, after becoming a prisoner of the Chinese people:

"After I arrived at the headquarters of the 2nd Anchorage Field in Xiaguan in Nanjing on the evening of December 15, the commander ordered me to say: Anda Shaozo is disposing of the body, and now I order you and Anda Shaozo to complete this mission together. After I was ordered, I carried out the task on the dock of Xiaguan in Nanjing, divided into two areas, east and west, Anda dealt with it in the east, and I handled it in the west, using a total of 30 gas boats, 10 cars, and 800 transport troops in the two areas, starting from December 16 to the 18th, more than 19,000 corpses were processed by me, and more than 16,000 were processed by Anda. In addition to the more than 65,000 bodies disposed of by Anda, the Anchorage Field Command has disposed of more than 100,000 corpses, of which more than 30,000 are buried and burned, and the rest are thrown into the Yangtze River. I think the other forces themselves also have at least 50,000 men, 150,000 in total. The vast majority of those killed were citizens, men, women and children. There were also some anti-Japanese guerrillas, estimated at 30,000. When I first arrived at Shimonoseki, I saw Japanese troops still firing at them with machine guns, and I remember that many of the people who were fired were still breathing, but alive.

"Of the more than 20,000 bodies that have been processed, more than 350 are still breathing after being shot. When dealing with these living people, I ordered the troops to beat them to death with iron hooks loaded with goods, so that they would die, and then use the hooks to put them on the boat and throw them into the Yangtze River. It is clear to me that this is a brutal killing. There is nothing more shocking and hateful than the confessions of a murderer. History has developed to this day, the soul of Japanese militarism is being resurrected, and we should not hold out any hope that the bandits will become benevolent. Robbers never change their hearts.

On August 4, 1984, in a farmer's house in Kita Village, Usuki-gun, Miyazaki Prefecture, Japan, a diary of a Japanese soldier who directly participated in the "Nanjing Massacre" was found. The diary was printed by the Japan Hakubunkan. This soldier was a senior soldier of the 23rd Wing of the capital of the Japanese invasion of China. It belonged to the 10th Division of the 18th Army.

On the page of December 15 (1937) in the diary, it is written:

"Today, it has become a wonder of the world to encounter about 2,000 countless escaped Chinese Yankees, who surrendered in long lines under white flags, mixed with young and old, dressed in different clothes, without carrying any weapons, and kneeling along the road. It seems that we killed them in different ways without doing anything. Recently, when I am bored, I take pleasure in killing Chinese. Innocent Chinese were captured, buried alive, pushed into the fire, doused with gasoline and burned alive, beaten to death with wooden sticks, or hanged with ropes. The means of taking people's lives have almost been exhausted.

On December 21, one page read: "Today, when the innocent Chinese were pushed down, beaten violently, and beaten to a half-dead state, they were pushed into a trench, set fire on their heads, and tortured them to death." In order to entertain and relieve boredom, everyone is having fun in this way, and this will cause a big incident in the interior of Japan. But in Nanjing, it's like killing a dog and slaughtering a cat. ”

In the photo album kept by the farmhouse, three black-and-white photographs were also found, one of which showed 12 freshly cut off human heads rolling to the ground, including old people, children, and women. Appalling. The background of the photo has the word Nanjing.