In the film Midway (2019) an epilogue states that the Japanese army killed 250,000 Chinese civilians as punishment for aiding the escape of Doolittle’s Raiders from Chinese territory. Is this true?

by iheartmagic

I can’t seem to find any other sources that claim this and the number seems impossibly high. Where did the film get this information from? What’s the basis for this claim?

jschooltiger

Yes, this is correct, although it's worth pointing out that the Chinese estimate of 250,000 includes people who died from all Japanese actions, which involved burning cities, destroying food crops, looting, indiscriminate killings, and biological warfare using paratyphoid and anthrax. I wrote about this more here.