Japan's Comfort Women (5 page)

12

The origins of the comfort women system
Plate 1.2
A Japanese officer standing by a large number of corpses, victims of the Nanjing Massacre.

Source
:
i
tsuki Shoten was on the way from Jinzhou to Chengde (the capital of Rehe Province), and tried to secure a seat in an army plane:

After I came to Manchuria, especially here in Chengde, I truly realized that
Joshi-gun
(Young Women’s Corps) is not just a word of fantasy, and that they were a part of the military forces, indeed a military force itself. I was told by a commander in Jinzhou that the women will be put on a plane as a priority, as they are necessary goods. Wherever Japanese forces advance to, the first thing senior officers consider is the importation of
Joshi-gun
. Thanks to these women, the Japanese troops do not rape Chinese women. These women are therefore not just prostitutes!12

As we will see later, there was no basis to Dr. Nakayama’s belief that the provision of comfort women would prevent rapes of Chinese civilians by Japanese soldiers.

A rapid increase in comfort stations after the
“Rape of Nanjing”

Although it seems that a number of comfort stations were set up in Shanghai as well as northeast China in early 1930s, Japanese forces adopted the military
The origins of the comfort women system
13

comfort women system as a general policy from late 1937. As a result, a large number of women were mobilized as comfort women.

In July 1937, Japan started a full-scale invasion of China. By early 1938, the number of Japanese troops stationed in China (including Manchuguo) increased to more than a million. It was the first time that Japan stationed such massive numbers of troops overseas.

The sudden increase in the number of Japanese comfort stations in China was closely related to atrocities that Japanese soldiers committed during the “Nanjing Massacre.” In 1937, Japanese troops fought a fierce battle in Shanghai (the so-called “Second Shanghai Incident”) which continued for three months. Japan’s Central China Area Army, led by General Matsui Iwane, then started advancing towards Nanjing in early November 1937. The members of this army committed crimes (eg. looting, massacre, arson, rape) at various places along the Yantzi River while proceeding towards Nanjing, as well as after entering the city.13

The leaders of the Central China Area Army soon recognized the problem of mass rape committed by their soldiers. On December 11, they instructed the commanders of each military contingent to set up comfort stations in order to prevent further rapes. On receiving this instruction, Iinuma Mamoru (the Chief of Staff of Shanghai Forces) ordered Lieutenant-Colonel Ch
d
Isamu, his junior staff officer, to carry out this task.14 The 10th Army, which was under the command of the Central China Area Army, also established comfort stations for their own soldiers. For example, on December 18, a staff officer of the 10th Army, Major Yamazaki Masao, wrote in his diary:

Lieutenant-Colonel Terada, who came here to Huzhou before me, has set up a recreation facility by instructing the military police. I was told that initially there were four [women], but from today there are seven [women].

As women are still afraid [of the Japanese soldiers], not many want to work here, and the service is not good enough. However, if we assure them that their lives are safe, we pay an appropriate amount of money, and we do not make them work hard, I expect women will come to work one after another.

The military police are unofficially saying that they will recruit 100 . . .

Though we did not inform the soldiers [about this facility] and no signs were put up on the house, the soldiers got to know about it from hearsay, and the house is already full of the men. It is already warned that there is a tendency to driving [the women] hard. Needless to say, Lieutenant-Colonel Terada has already tested himself. When Major
i
saka as well as Captain Send
d
, who arrived here today, heard about this house, they could not wait any longer and went there together with the chief of kempeitai. About one and a half hours ago they returned . . . They seemed to be more or less satisfied.15

From this diary entry it is clear that local Chinese women were used as comfort women in this case. As the kempeitai (military police) were involved in setting up the comfort station, it was quite possible that these women were forcibly 14

The origins of the comfort women system
recruited. The fact that the kempeitai intended to secure 100 women also suggests that the Japanese forces were prepared to use coercion on Chinese civilians in the occupied area.

The Medical Unit of the 3rd Division set up a comfort station soon after they entered Yangzhou on December 18. A Chinese local security council was ordered to supply 60 women to this station. ( These councils were organizations that occupying Japanese troops forced local civilians to establish.) Eventually 47 women were secured.16 The 26th Brigade of the 13th Division, stationed in Bengbu, also set up a comfort station staffed with 10 Chinese women, which opened at the end of January 1938.17 Therefore it seems that the Japanese forces which invaded Nanjing and neighboring areas used many Chinese women as comfort women. Some troops used devious methods to “recruit” these women.

However, the exploitation of local Chinese women in territories occupied by the invading Japanese troops did not become a general pattern. Before March 1938, some units such as the 104 Regiment stationed in Chuxian, were reluctant to use local women as comfort women. They did not set up a comfort station until mid-March when Japanese and Korean women were sent to this unit.18 It seems that sooner or later troop commanders realized that it was not good policy to force local women into prostitution, out of consideration for the public. Another reason that the Japanese troops were generally reluctant to use local Chinese women was related to security. In particular, the kempeitai were concerned that local Chinese comfort women could be recruited as spies by the Chinese forces. In many places in China comfort station managers were instructed by the kempeitai not to “employ” Chinese comfort women. Thus, from March 1938, the number of Korean and Japanese women being sent to China began to increase.

Indeed, the full-scale mobilization of Korean women as comfort women from early 1938 is documented in Dr. As
d
Tetsuo’s personal memo as well as in photos he took. Dr. As
d
was a gynecologist and a probationary medical officer at the Army Communication Hospital in Shanghai at the time. According to Dr.

As
d
, he examined 80 Korean and about 20 Japanese women on January 2, 1938. These women were to be comfort women at a comfort station in Shanghai which was soon to be opened. Dr. As
d
claimed that these women were brought either from Korea or from various places in northern Kyushu. He also stated that, “interestingly, many women from Korea were relatively young and physically pure, but most of those [ Japanese] from Kyushu were undoubtedly professionals in this business.”19 However, these Korean women were not from Korea but residents of Kyushu, according to Mr. Taguchi Eiz
d
(a pseudonym), a former labor broker who was commissioned to recruit these women by the army in late 1937.20 As has already been explained, in the early stage of the Asia-Pacific War, the Japanese recruited many Korean residents from poverty-stricken families as well as karayuki-san ( Japanese prostitutes) from similar family backgrounds in Kyushu.

The Army’s pool for recruitment of comfort women at this time was not, however, limited to lower-class Korean and Japanese families in Kyushu. For example, on November 20, 1937, the Ministry of Army called on brothel owners
The origins of the comfort women system
15

in several red-light districts in Tokyo, such as Tamanoi and Kameido. The military authorities asked them not only to recruit comfort women, but also to open comfort stations in mid-east China on behalf of the army. These brothel owners were assured that the Army would provide suitable buildings and they would be treated favorably in provision of food, payment, transportation and the like. In response to this request, in January 1938 one of these brothel owners, Mr. Kunii Shigeru, sailed to Shanghai with 53 Japanese prostitutes and opened comfort stations in Wusong, Nanxiang, and Nanshi.21

In May 1938, Japanese forces occupied Xuzhou. Wuhan and Guangdong also fell into Japanese hands in October that year. The number of Japanese troops stationed in China (excluding Manchuguo) was approximately 700,000 by this time. As the Sino-Japanese War became deadlocked, these soldiers were forced to stay in the occupied territories for a long period. Most of them were not given designated leave to return home. Military leaders believed that the provision of comfort women was a good means of providing their men with some kind of leisure to compensate for such unlimited tours of duty. Thus, by late 1938, the comfort women system became well interlocked with the Japanese military system.

As a result, the number of comfort stations, as well as the number of comfort women, rapidly increased in most occupied areas. For example, Table 1.1 was produced using information from various documents prepared between late 1938

and mid-1939 by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The information in Table 1.1 was obtained from statistical data on occupations among the Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese residents in these cities, compiled by the Japanese Consulate-General’s offices.22 The number of Chinese comfort women is not known. In addition, these comfort stations were all run by private proprietors under the auspices of the army. The number of comfort stations directly run by the army, therefore, is also unknown, and these statistics do not reflect the true situation. However, even from this limited information, it
Table 1.1
Number of comfort stations and comfort women, east-central China, 1938– 1939

Place

Army comfort stations

Comfort women

Shanghai

unknown

300

(seven navy brothels)

Hangzhou

4

36

Jiujiang

24

250 (143 Koreans & 107 Japanese)

Wuhu

6

70 (22 Koreans & 48 Japanese)

Wuhan

20

492 (not all of them were comfort

women. Some were waitresses.)

Nanchang

11

111 (100 Koreans & 11 Japanese)

Zhenjiang

8

unknown

Yangzhou

and Danyang

1

unknown

16

The origins of the comfort women system
is clear that comfort stations were now established, not only in major cities but also in small and medium-sized cites as well.

The increase of comfort stations in mid-1938 was not a phenomenon limited to cities along the Yantzi River, but was also seen in northern China. Here too, Japanese soldiers raped many Chinese women, and comfort stations were established for the purpose of preventing mass rape. This fact is clear from an instruction issued to each unit commander in June 1938, by Lieutenant-General Okabe Naozabur
d
(then Chief of Staff of the North China Area Army). The instruction stated: According to various information, the reason for such strong anti-Japanese sentiment [among the local Chinese population] is widespread rape committed by Japanese military personnel in many places. It is said that such rape is fermenting unexpectedly serious anti-Japanese sentiment . . . Therefore, frequent occurrence of rape in various places is not just a matter of criminal law. It is nothing but high treason that breaches public peace and order, that harms the strategic activities of our entire forces, and that brings serious trouble to our nation . . . It is necessary to eradicate such acts. Any commander who tolerates rape must be condemned as a disloyal subject . . .

Therefore it is of vital importance that individual acts by our military personnel be strictly controlled, and that, at the same time, facilities for sexual pleasure be established promptly, in order to prevent our men from inadvertently breaking the law due to the lack of such facilities.23

Thus, in order to prevent sexual crimes committed by members of his own Army, Lieutenant-General Okabe (who had played an important role in introducing comfort stations in Shanghai in 1932) again instructed commanders under his authority to set up comfort stations in northern China. The statistical data on occupations compiled by Japanese Consulate-General’s offices in this region does not specify the number of sex workers at “
ianjo.
” Thus, it is not known how many comfort stations and comfort women there were in northern China. One relevant document is the “Statistical Table on Occupations of Japanese Residents”

prepared by the Department of Police Affairs in Northern China in July 1939.24

In this table, 8,931 women were recorded as geisha, prostitutes, and barmaids. It is presumed that many of these women were comfort women. Yet, here again, Chinese comfort women were not included in this statistical survey, and therefore it is impossible to find exact numbers of comfort women exploited by Japanese forces in this part of China.

In reference to the situation in southern China, there is a relevant military document prepared by the 21st Army Headquarters stationed in Guangzhou (Guangdong Province). A ten-day report issued on April 20, 1939 contains a brief description of comfort stations under the control of this army, including Table 1.2.25

The nationalities of the 850 women listed in Table 1.2 are not specified in this document. However, according to this report, in addition to the 850 comfort women working under the direct control of this army, there were 150 Japanese