A site in Nanjing, the capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, was recently confirmed as the place where more than 1,000 Chinese were massacred by marauding Japanese troops on December 13, 1937, Xinhua News Agency reported.

Historians said this was based on the testimonies of Japanese veterans involved in the Nanjing Massacre as well as some "rrefutable historical documents".

According to the Xinhua report, on August 15, the 62nd anniversary of the end of World War II, an 18-member goodwill delegation from the Japanese Meishinkai organization visited Nanjing to pay homage to the memory of over 300,000 Chinese people massacred by Japanese troops in December 1937.

Matsuoka Tamaki, the delegation's head, said that in 1997 she began to interview Japanese veterans who had served in the imperial forces.

Among the veterans interviewed, she said that six had been part of the former No. 6 Squadron of the 33rd Company of the 16th Imperial Division. "Their oral testimonies and written materials indicate that a massacre site existed around the Taiping Gate area of the city."

According to the veterans' descriptions, on December 13, 1937 the Japanese squadron escorted more than 1,000 Chinese people shackled together to a place near Taiping Gate. The soldiers were then "ordered to kill all of them in three different ways."

First, they were ordered to blow them up using landmines. "We had buried mines in fixed places in advance, and forced the Chinese people to walk on them". Second: burn them. "Some Japanese soldiers poured gasoline on those Chinese people and set them alight". Third: stab them with bayonets.

Ms. Matsuoka was told by one veteran that some Japanese soldiers were even ordered to "conduct a comprehensive re-examination of the site" the next day and remain on alert. "Anybody who was found still breathing would be bayoneted or set alight".

Zhu Chengshan, the director of the Nanjing Massacre Museum, said that after he consulted a great many historical documents he had concluded that the Taiping Gate area was "undoubtedly a massacre site".

"This is a new finding," Zhu said. "Previously the Nanjing Massacre sites were considered to be primarily along the Yangtze River. The Nanjing Military Court has confirmed more than 20 sites where Japanese troops massacred Chinese people, but the Taiping Gate area had never been previously mentioned."

Zhu said that the Taiping Gate area differed from other massacre sites because it served both as a massacre site and as a burial ground. "Killing people with landmines is an horrific crime seldom seen in the world. This shows that Japanese troops were extremely ferocious," he added.

As for the question of how many Chinese people were massacred there, Zhu concluded, after reviewing the Japanese veterans' testimony, that the figure must be more than 1,000.

A former Japanese commander named Sasaki led the 33rd Company in those days. His diary verified the estimate. A notation cites: "More than 1,300 Chinese people were massacred near the Taping Gate."

The Nanjing Massacre Museum has begun erecting a monument on the newly discovered massacre site to comfort the victims, Xinhua reported.

(China.org.cn by Li Jingrong August 17, 2007)