Japan's Comfort Women (23 page)

In Panama, the Provost Marshal General’s office organized a sort of educational tour for the soldiers to the red-light districts. They pointed out the designated brothels and instructed soldiers only to use those houses. The soldiers were not given a pass unless they attended this tour. The report admitted that there was some criticism that this expose served as an “introductory tour” rather than as a warning. As in Africa, the Middle East, and India, prophylactic stations were set up in red-light districts in the Caribbean. At one station near Quarry Heights, for example, as many as 200 to 300 condoms were given away every evening. In addition, all soldiers coming back drunk were required to be treated with prophylaxis at the camp hospitals. Yet, on the Pacific side some 400

VD cases were treated each month, and on the Atlantic side over 300 patients were admitted. At one stage, “no condoms had been on hand for almost a month until a few days previous, when an adequate supply had been sent down by plane.”56

On the island of Aruba off Venezuela (then a Dutch colony), the town of San Nicholas immediately outside the US Army post had “active uncontrolled prostitution.” Every two weeks 200 Venezuelan prostitutes from the mainland were flown by the Dutch airline to this island as well as to another island, Curacao.

But for some unknown reason, these women were only allowed to stay on the islands for two weeks and then had to swap with another group. Prostitution at a hotel was prohibited, and so the business was carried out on the mountain nearby. The US command even set up a prophylactic station near the foot of the mountain and made sure to treat soldiers immediately after “each action.” At one station which Major-General Peterson visited for inspection, 56 soldiers were treated by 9:30 pm.57

At Salinas in Ecuador, two brothels were designated in the red-light district and soldiers were allowed to visit these houses only between 4:00 pm and midnight. Here a quite similar method to that in Eritrea was adopted. A soldier had to surrender his pass to MPs at the entrance of the red-light district. The pass
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was delivered to a doctor at the prophylactic station set up in the district. The soldier could only regain his pass by appearing at the station for treatment, and without his pass no soldier could go back to his base. In this way, soldiers who visited the brothels were sure to be treated at the station. Moreover, at 4:00 pm every day, a US Army doctor with a local health officer visited these two brothels and checked whether every woman there possessed a health card verifying a recent VD examination. Any woman found without such a card was immediately removed by local police. In British Guyana, too, medical officers examined the prostitutes of designated brothels, and prophylactic chemicals were provided to one of those houses. Military police on patrol in the red-light district were authorized to request prophylactic treatment for any soldier picked up intoxicated.58

US forces stationed at Antigua in Guatemala took an extraordinary measure to reduce their soldiers’ contact with local prostitutes, by bringing women from the US. One confidential document outlined seven different measures implemented by this unit which lowered its VD rate considerably in September 1942. One of these measures was “the importation of as many white women as possible, on any pretext possible, as hostesses, civilian aides, nurses, dates, etc.” It is not known from this document whether these “white women” were professional prostitutes or not, or how many such women were “imported.”59

Despite such VD prevention measures and the introduction of controlled prostitution, it still seemed difficult to reduce the VD rates among the troops stationed overseas. One reason for this was that many soldiers who came to the brothels were intoxicated and did not use condoms. It was also often too late to be properly disinfected when they visited a nearby prophylactic station a few hours after having had intercourse with prostitutes.60 Intoxication among soldiers who frequented brothels was a common problem, not only in the Caribbean but also in Africa, the Middle East, and India, where Major Brumfield investigated.

Moreover, doctors and medical orderlies were not always at prophylactic stations to attend visiting soldiers. The soldiers were expected to use prophylactic chemicals themselves, yet they were not properly trained to do so.

From these War Department documents, it can be verified that US military-controlled prostitution was widely practiced in the Caribbean as well as Africa, the Middle East, and India, in spite of the War Department’s official disapproval of such activities. As already explained, it also reconfirms that senior officers in the War Department gave up applying the “May Act” to overseas troops from very early stages of the war. They condoned the implementation of prostitution controlled by their overseas commanders. Some senior officers of the War Department not only pretended to be uninformed about this matter but actively tried to cover up their knowledge. For example, on October 9, 1943, Eliot Ness (Director of the Division of Social Protection, Community War Service) wrote to Colonel H. A. Cooney of G-1:

Dear Colonel Cooney,

Following our telephone conversation on the Caribbean, I discussed the 102

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matter of the statement “Venereal Disease Control Programs in the Caribbean Area,” with Mr. Taft. We are in complete agreement with your point of view that
while G-1 of the Army agreed in principle with the statement, the statement should not be published and made available for general distribution in its present form
; and that statements relative to the movement of troops were detrimental to the war effort if made available to persons outside the armed forces.

The statement will not be made available for general distribution in its present form and any recommendations pertaining to the movement of troops will be deleted from the statement, in as much as this recommendation has reached the proper official in the US Army.61

[Emphasis added]

There are a number of Australian archival documents which refer to the prostitution controlled by US forces stationed in Australia. None of the official US

documents I have found so far mention this activity.

As already explained, Australia’s military forces made great efforts to suppress VD amongst its soldiers stationed overseas from the very early stages of the war.

At the beginning of the war, the Australian government and its military leaders were also concerned about growing VD rates amongst troops stationed within Australia as well as in the general population.62 Thus, unlike the US War Department, Australian authorities distributed condoms to their soldiers at domestic camps and bases and set up prophylactic stations in almost all red-light districts in major cites and towns. According to relevant Australian documents, US troops stationed in Australia had their own prophylactic stations, but at some places they shared the same stations by agreement. US soldiers were also permitted entry for treatment in Australian military hospitals, though the Americans preferred being treated by their own medical officers unless their diseases were too serious to be attended to at ill-equipped camp hospitals.63 It is not clear, however, whether the US forces used the restricted brothels for their members in Australia, apart from some specific cases that I will examine later.

During the war, the highly valued US currency induced many Australian prostitutes to serve the GIs, and therefore some of these professional women literally became “camp followers” of the US troops. There were some groups of women who followed the US troops as the forces moved to different areas within Australia: for example, not long after some US forces moved to Townsville in the northern state of Queensland around February 1942, a large group of prostitutes moved into this town and boarded at civilian houses. Some of them rented the houses and started “living with” Americans. The local and federal government authorities were gravely concerned that the flood of these “immoral women” would lead to a decline of morals in Townsville.64

The economic power, smart uniforms and flamboyant lifestyle of the American soldiers also attracted young civilian women in Australia. Many girls dated GIs rather than “diggers” (i.e. Australian soldiers), which caused deep resent-ments among Australian men. US troops were described as “over-sexed, over-paid and over here.” This situation created tensions between American and
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Australian servicemen, and in fact led to a few incidents of street fighting between the two groups in major cities. On November 26, 1942, 3,000 soldiers from both sides and some civilians were involved in a two hour battle in Brisbane, which resulted in the deaths of two men and many injuries. Fighting continued the following day. Similar but smaller-scale battles also occurred in Adelaide and Perth. In February 1943, fighting took place in Melbourne between two forces involving 2,000 men.65

This kind of street fighting was also seen between two groups of US soldiers: white against Afro-American soldiers. It was tragic that the largest contingent of Afro-American soldiers on overseas service in 1942 was sent to Australia, a country with a strong “white supremacy policy.” Many of these black soldiers were sent to Queensland, where the policy of racial segregation against Australian blacks (Aborigines) was rigorously implemented. Fighting between white and black GIs started in a red-light district in south Brisbane on March 11, 1942, and lasted for 10 days. Detailed information on this conflict is still not available, but it seems that the fighting broke out when black GIs were refused access to some brothels that white GIs were using.66 This conflict was therefore a combination of racial and gender problems.

The series of violent racial incidents over 10 days triggered by this incident probably led the US forces to set up some special brothels for the black GIs in Queensland. The existence of such houses was referred to in the report
Civilian
Morale in North Queensland
. The report was co-authored by Physiology Professor R. D. Wright of Melbourne University and Dr. Ian Hogbin, an anthropologist from Sydney University, and was submitted to the Prime Minister’s Committee on National Morale in February 1943. It says:

It is commonly believed in the southern states that there are licensed brothels in Queensland. This is not so, though the police insist that girls living in certain houses, who are known to be prostitutes, shall have regular examinations. In Brisbane, there are some twenty of these houses, and in Townsville, two or three. The American forces have set up several such places, with Australian girls, for the use of negro troops, much to the disgust of many civilians. The inducement to the girls to enter such places must be strong, for Sir Raphael Cilento stated that one increased her Savings Bank account by £3800 during twelve months.67

It is clear from this report that the US forces used pecuniary incentives in order to secure the service of Australian girls for their coloured troops. Such arrangements, which breached the “white Australia policy,” angered one of the cabinet members of the Australian federal government, who read the report. On April 14, 1943, H. P. Lazzarini, the Minister for Home Security, wrote an indignant letter to the Prime Minister John Curtin, complaining that: This seems to me to be something so outrageous to Australian psychology that it is likely to become the gravest possible menace to Australia’s war

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effort, and I think myself deservedly so. Perhaps nothing embittered the German people more and provided such a fertile field of exploitation by Hitler in the early days of the rise of National Socialism, than the compel-ling of the German people to provide white German women to satisfy the lust of the African negroes, and the mere suggestion that the Americans are allowed to use Australian girls to satisfy the lust of American negroes seems to me incomprehensible.

I myself will not stand for it, and whenever it is raised I will attack it with all the vigour of which I am capable, and will dissociate myself at all times from such a vicious practice.68

There is an interesting contradiction in this letter: Lazzarini implies that it was vital to keep a racial segregation policy in order to avoid the rise of fascism, and thus virtually supported an unprecedented racist policy similar to that of the Nazis! It is not known how the prime minister responded to such vicious criticism from one of his own cabinet members. However, it is presumed that John Curtin remained silent and did not raise this matter with the US military authorities, knowing that American cooperation was so vital to defend his country against Japanese invasion.

Plate 4.3
US soldiers dating with Australian girls in the park in Melbourne, while an Australian soldier lies on the grass, watching enviously. Date unknown.

Source
: Australian War Memorial, transparency number 011540