The veteran who drove Hisao Tani to the execution ground

94-year-old veteran Tang Zeqi from Wuxi, Jiangsu province, drove Hisao Tani to an execution ground in Nanjing in 1947. [Photo/wxrb.com]

"The truck I drove was without an awning and Hisao Tani was escorted by seven or eight gendarmes. From Huangpu Road at the Ministry of National Defense to the execution ground at Yuhuatai, there were endless voices of people condemning his atrocities along the way," recalled Tang Zeqi, a 94-year-old veteran living in Wuxi, Jiangsu province. He drove the Japanese war criminal, Hisao Tani, to an execution ground in Nanjing on April 26, 1947.

Hisao Tani was a commander of the Japanese Army's Sixth Division during the War of Resistant against Japanese Aggression. He and his troops committed "mass murders, rapes, looting and wanton destruction," in Nanjing, the capital of China at the time.

During the six-week-long Nanjing Massacre starting on Dec 13, 1937, Japanese invaders raped countless women and killed more than 300,000 people.

"I was a postal driver at the Kuomintang Army Forces Command and in charge of transferring mail to Chiang Kai-shek's mansion at that time. Hisao Tani stood on public trial at the Lizhishe Auditorium in Nanjing in February and was sentenced to death in March. He was shot to death to the sound of Nanjing people shouting 'revenge'on April 26," Tang said.

Born in the city of Kaili in Guizhou province in 1922, Tang was conscripted into the Kuomintang army at the age of 16. He was previously a subordinate of Kuomintang general Sun Liren. He was also part of the Chinese Expeditionary Army to Burma (now Myanmar) that successfully crossed the country's Savage Mountain twice.