Miner Searle Bates
Encyclopedia
Miner Searle Bates was educated at numerous, prestigious institutions such as the University of Oxford, Yale University
, and Hiram College. He worked with the YMCA in India and Mesopotamia before finally beginning work at Nanking University from 1920-1950.
His father was a minister who became president of Hiram College.
.
. During this time, he became one of the leaders of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and worked to secure the safety of the remaining population of Nanking
who were mostly those who were too poor to evacuate in advance of the Japanese assault on the city. This task was dangerous and his life was put at risk on many occasions, most notably when he was shoved down a flight of stairs by Japanese military police
after inquiring about the fate of a student who had been abducted by Japanese soldiers. Bates pulled soldiers off women that they were molesting, and on several occasions, had pistols held to his head.
Only two days after the fall of Nanking, Bates wrote his first letter to the Japanese Embassy, protesting atrocities that had been committed by members of the Japanese military against Chinese POWs and civilians.
Bates was a major moving spirit behind H. J. Timperley's book, Japanese Terror in China (New York, June 1938).
Bates was appointed Vice President of Nanjing University on January 13, 1938.
After the war, he was summoned as a witness at the Tokyo Trials and subsequent Chinese trials for war criminals.
Bates is portrayed in the HBO film Nanking
. He is quoted as having stated the following,
"Religious faith is believing that good things are worth doing for their own sake even in a world that seems overpoweringly evil. I remain assured in hard experience that neither by national guns nor by national gods will mankind be saved, but only by the genuine regard for all members of the human family."
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, and Hiram College. He worked with the YMCA in India and Mesopotamia before finally beginning work at Nanking University from 1920-1950.
His father was a minister who became president of Hiram College.
Education
Bates received his B.A. from Hiram College in Hiram, Ohio 1916. He was awareded a Rhodes Scholarship to study at Oxford University in England. When the United States entered World War I, Bates joined the YMCA and served in Mesopotamia until the end of the war. After the war, he returned to Oxford to finish his B.A. In 1920, he was commissioned by the United Christian Missionary Society to teach at the University of Nanking . In 1934-35, Bates returned to the U.S. to study the Japanese and Russian languages at Harvard University as a Rockefeller Foundation Fellow. In 1935, he was awarded a Ph.D. in Chinese history by Yale University. Bates then returned to his post as a professor of history at Nanking UniversityNanjing University
Nanjing University , or Nanking University, is one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions of higher learning in China...
.
World War II
In the summer of 1937, Bates travelled with his family to Japan, returning to Nanjing alone. He was thus present in Nanjing during the Battle of Nanking and in the subsequent period known as the Rape of NankingNanking Massacre
The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a mass murder, genocide and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing , the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second...
. During this time, he became one of the leaders of the International Committee for the Nanking Safety Zone and worked to secure the safety of the remaining population of Nanking
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
who were mostly those who were too poor to evacuate in advance of the Japanese assault on the city. This task was dangerous and his life was put at risk on many occasions, most notably when he was shoved down a flight of stairs by Japanese military police
Kempeitai
The was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not an English-style military police, but a French-style gendarmerie...
after inquiring about the fate of a student who had been abducted by Japanese soldiers. Bates pulled soldiers off women that they were molesting, and on several occasions, had pistols held to his head.
Only two days after the fall of Nanking, Bates wrote his first letter to the Japanese Embassy, protesting atrocities that had been committed by members of the Japanese military against Chinese POWs and civilians.
Bates was a major moving spirit behind H. J. Timperley's book, Japanese Terror in China (New York, June 1938).
Bates was appointed Vice President of Nanjing University on January 13, 1938.
After the war, he was summoned as a witness at the Tokyo Trials and subsequent Chinese trials for war criminals.
Bates is portrayed in the HBO film Nanking
Nanking (film)
Nanking is a 2007 film about the 1937 Nanking Massacre committed by the Japanese army in the former capital city Nanjing, China. The film draws on letters and diaries from the era as well as archive footage and interviews with surviving victims and perpetrators of the massacre...
. He is quoted as having stated the following,
"Religious faith is believing that good things are worth doing for their own sake even in a world that seems overpoweringly evil. I remain assured in hard experience that neither by national guns nor by national gods will mankind be saved, but only by the genuine regard for all members of the human family."