During the last three decades, Ono\u2019s footsteps covered almost every inch of Fukushima prefecture. Interviewing about 300 veterans and relatives of members of the 65th company, he gathered testimonies from 200 people and collected 31 war diaries.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe irrefutable proof of the Nanjing Massacre shall not be distorted,\u201d Ono concluded, based on his comparative studies of the information he collected from multiple sources, including the war diaries kept by Japanese soldiers, and the oral survey he conducted on the witnesses of the slaughter.<\/p>\n
According to Ono\u2019s findings, the 65th company of 13th Infantry Division of the Imperial Japanese Army<\/a>, starting from Dec. 16, 1937, had murdered 17,025 Chinese civilians along the Mufu Mountain section of the Yangtze River.<\/p>\n Ono\u2019s findings have triggered strong dissatisfaction among right-wing politicians in Japan after being reported by Japanese media in the early 1990s. However, his points, established on detailed historical materials, victim surveys, and multiple testimonies, were irrefutable.<\/p>\n Ono, together with Akira Fujiwara and Katsuichi Honda, co-authors of a book about the true stories of a Japanese military division in the mass killing in Nanjing, published it in Japan in 1996.<\/p>\n Japanese experts believe that the book has exposed the fallacies and lies which assert that the massacre began with self-defense, and even denied historical facts. They said the book is a piece of valuable evidence that mirrors the reality of the Nanjing Massacre.<\/p>\n Ono noted that, as a Japanese citizen, he hopes to have a thorough investigation and reveal the truth about the Nanjing Massacre. That is what compelled him to study the event, one that is both sensitive and substantially challenged in Japan, he told People\u2019s Daily.<\/p>\n Speaking to a Japanese veteran named Tomio Niizuma in the 1990s, Ono said that the war criminal, in his twilight years, deeply reflected on the crimes he committed in the Nanjing Massacre.<\/p>\n Niizuma once told Ono that his unforgivable mistakes had earned him heavenly retribution that his eldest son died young not long after he joined the military, and the second one had also gone.<\/p>\n According to many Japanese scholars acquainted with Ono, Ono has a strong sense of justice. Faced with the Japanese right-wing activists who deny the existence of the Nanjing Massacre, he hopes that, through the textual data he has collected and the oral testimonies of witnesses, Japanese society could learn from history and prevent tragedies from repeating.<\/p>\n \u201cInvestigating the Nanjing Massacre is my life\u2019s goal,\u201d Ono said.<\/p>\n It is no easy task to collect historical materials and use them to reveal the truth, but that is a trump card in the fight against the right-wing politicians who deny the existence of the mass killing, Ono explained.<\/p>\n Apart from the research, he has also introduced his results to the Japanese public, letting more people know about the history of the Nanjing Massacre.<\/p>\n Every sentence he wrote is backed up by historical materials and data from different sources. As a result, Japanese right-wing politicians are in no position to refute Ono, though they bear resentment against him.<\/p>\n \u201cUnearthing historical materials of the Nanjing Massacre is a race against time,\u201d Ono said.<\/p>\n On one hand, he will soon be unable to carry on his research as he gets older; on the other hand, it will be harder to spot more materials such as war diaries because of the death of Japanese veterans. According to him, it\u2019s a matter of \u201cdo it now or regret later.\u201d<\/p>\n Pics:<\/p>\n
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<\/a>Ono is introducing his research experiences. On the desk are the war diaries he collected from invading Japanese soldiers. Photo by Liu Junguo from People\u2019s Daily<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/lapost.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/image2.jpeg\")
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