Yuki Tanaka on sexual violence by military(3)

Recreation and Amusement Association


Japanese prepared the comfort stations for GIs for sure, and it is also true that Japanese police was involved. Thus in the official history of police forces is written the following.

The recruitment was carried out mainly through labor brokers, but ....officers checked the names and addresses of former licensed prostitutes from the list held in the police station, visited the villages in the mountains and seacoast areas when these women lived , gave them blankets , socks and sugar and asked their cooperation by persuading the to work again for the sake of the nation and for the safety of the Japanese people. page 135

And

Despite having given the RAA initial verbal permission for "open recruitment," two month later the police issued an instruction warning the RAA and its labor broker not to "unfairly recruit women by using exaggerated or false expressions, or by suppressing the names of employers.(page 147)

but as I blogged before, a Japanese testified that he was requested to set up the stations. Well the governor of Kanagawa has a different story-----he was blackmailed.

The US officer had said,
It is expected that women in our home country would blame us , if we asked you to set up pleasure facilities. Therefore we can not request you to do so.. However if you don not provide us with such facilities voluntarily, many troubles tend to occur. As far as these kinds of facilities are concerned , our MP is prepared to co-operate with you if necessary. I presume that the occupation of japan by our troops will be about three years at maximum if no trouble occurs but if there are many troubles, I am afraid that it might be 10 to 15 years. page 151

How was the situation of comfort women ?

According to a survey conducted in 1949 by Isuhima Tsutomu on 500 prostitutes specializing in services for GIs, 26.8 percent said that they had become prostitutes in order to earn a living ...The second most common reason(22. 8 percent) was the despair that women experienced as a result of rape by GIs page 149

Comfort women were subjected to numerous instances of sexual violence. Foe example, on the evening of September 4, three Australian soldiers visited a comfort station at Higashiyama in Kyoto. ..they insisted on being accompanied by three comfort women to their hotel, where their fellow Australian soldiers were staying. The manager of the station refused the request. However, they forcibly took the women away , shouting at the manager that "Japan lost the war and your police have no power at all !"' page 149

The US is supposed to act on morally high ground, at least that is what we often hear.

Unless VD rates were reduced, the problem would become publicly known and taken up by the media, to the great embarrassment of occupation authorities. This dilemma can be clearly seen in the letter that James Gordon wrote to General MacArthur on January 22, 1946, ... In it, he wrote;
It is reasonable to assume that back-home news accounts of increasing VD rates, licensed prostitution (or perhaps, its abolition), "temporary wives", fraternization and related subjects will create considerable demand from official and domestic sources for special consideration and action on the problem. The probable result will be an increase of critical visitors unless their demands for information are anticipated and forestalled.

As a last resort, on March 25, 1946, GHQ adopted a drastic, nationwide measure. It placed "off-limits" all brothels, comfort station, houses of private prostitution, and "restaurants and bars" that operated prostitution. page 162

Shortly before the introduction of the the nationwide "off limits" the number of reported cases of sexual crimes committed by GIs in Japan was down to about 40 per day. It is said that the number suddenly jumped to about 330 cases per day from late March 1946. The most well known case was an incident that occurred on April 4, 1946, at Nakamura Hospital in Omori district.....three military trucks stopped in front of the hospital, throwing their headlight upon the hospital building. Then , at the signal of a whistle, about 50 US soldiers dashed out of the trucks and invaded the hospital ....They raped all 17 nurses on night duty , about 20 nursing assistants, and more than 40 female patients, including a woman who had just delivered a baby. A two-day-old baby was thrown out of the mother's bed onto the floor and killed .
....Another large scale organized rape occurred in Nagoya...they had come in jeep and truck, they cut off the telephone lines of the entire block and intruded into a number of houses simultaneously, raping many girls and women between the ages of 10 and 55 years.

If Japan had been ruled by CCP, she would have shamelessly had someone write "the rape of Japan" , she would have set up the museum for it, and shot the film as political weapons while ignoring its own wrongs.
If Japan had the leaders like Korean politicians and the media, she would not let this story go and she would shamelessly use it forever to bash whatever countries concerned, how many times she apologized while completely apathetic to the victims of the same kind by their own government and society.
Keep in mind the U.S. congressional research institute used the book to support its article. Surely Mike Honda and Onishi, righteous men, will start campaigning against the former allies, and other human right activists like Debito will work hardest to make the US and Korean government apologize for the first time----No?