"The slaughter of civilians is horrific, and the rapes and killings told by patients and that I am able to continue recording are incredible..."

--- Dr. Robert Wilson

Robert Wilson, an American doctor, was born in Nanjing.

As the only surgeon in the city during the Nanjing Massacre, he healed the wounded and rescued the dying. In Dr. Wilson we could feel courage, justice, kindness, and responsibility. He possessed all the virtues of a doctor.

Today, on Chinese Doctors' Day, we should pay high tribute to him as a special "Chinese doctor". 

Robert Wilson　　

Robert Wilson was born in Nanjing in 1906. He graduated from Princeton University in the United States. In 1929, he received his Doctor's Degree from Harvard Medical School in the United States. In 1936, he went to work in the affiliated hospital of Jinling University (now Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital) and became a surgeon.

During the Nanjing Massacre, he was the only surgeon in the city. In the absence of water and electricity, he worked day and night to treat Li Xiuying and other Chinese refugees who had been shot, stabbed or raped by the Japanese army.

In 1946, he testified before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East to the Nanjing Massacre.　

John Magee, an American pastor, recorded by videos what Wilson and other doctors were facing on a daily basis. Short-handed, he also worked as a hospital driver and an obstetrician. He joined the Nanjing Branch of the International Committee of the Red Cross, and assisted the International Committee of the Nanjing Safety Zone to protect the refugees in Nanjing as much as he could.

Despite the overload every day, Wilson still felt sorry for the refugees he had not saved. Even when he left China the feeling was not relieved. Dr. Wilson's diaries were full of strong hatred for Japanese militarism, as well as friendship and sympathy for the Chinese people.

In the Tokyo Trial after the war, Wilson was the first to testify as a witness in the Nanjing Massacre case of the International Prosecutor's Office. As an American doctor, his identity as a third party, his medical background, and his own recordings made his testimony even more convincing, testifying to a series of atrocities committed by the Japanese army in Nanjing.

The ward of Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital where Dr. Wilson worked

 The Dairies of Robert Wilson (extract)

Robert Wilson, an American doctor at Nanjing Drum Tower Hospital, testified before the International Military Tribunal for the Far East

The transcript of the trial of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (extract), which contained Wilson’s testimony in court to the Nanjing Massacre