Based on: “James Henry McCallum”, Yale University Library: Divinity Library
Suping Lu, They Were in Nanjing. The Nanjing Massacre Witnessed by American and British Nationals. Hong Kong 2004
Thomas Rabe, John Rabe. Sein Leben, seine Zeit. Heidelberg 2009

Last updated: 10/07/2019

James Henry McCallum was born on November 19, 1893 in Olympia, Washington. After graduating from the University of Oregon in 1917, he went on to earn his B.D. from Yale Divinity School in 1921. Later he obtained a Master’s Degree from Chicago Divinity School (1927) and continued his education by doing doctoral work at the Union Theological Seminary in New York (1939). In 1921, he married Eva Anderson and together they moved to China in the same year.

In China, he engaged in evangelical and community center work for the United Christian Missionary Society. During the Nanjing Massacre, he was the administrator of the Nanjing University Hospital and participated in refugee relief work. The letters he wrote during this time served as evidence in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (Tokyo Trial). After the war, he was in charge of rehabilitation work in Nanjing as secretary of the Mission (1946-1951). At the end of his service in China, he handled missionary finances. McCallum returned to the United States in 1951. He passed away April 20, 1984 in Pico Rivera, California.