A "comfort girl" is nothing more than a prostitute or "professional camp follower" attached to the Japanese Army for the benefit of the soldiers.(「慰安婦」とは、売春婦にすぎない。もしくは「野営追随プロ」、軍人の利益の為日本陸軍に付属する。)大東亜戦争の真実を広めてくれる方もしくは旧宮家の復籍こそGHQの呪縛を断ち日本が独立主権国家として再興する近道であると信じる方は、一日一押人気ブログランキングをクリック願います。
日本語訳
UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION
Psychological Warfare Team
Attached to U.S.Army Forces India-Burma Theator
APO 689
Japanese Prisoner
of War Interrogation
Report No. 49. Place interrogated : Ledo Stookade
Date Interrogated : Aug. 20 - Sept. 10, 1944
Date of Report : October 1, 1944
By : T/3 Alex Yorichi
Prisoners : 20 Korean Comfort Girls
Date of Capture : August 10, 1944
Date of Arrival : August 15, 1994
at Stookade
彼女らは陸軍が彼女らの捕獲の事を知れば、他の女性達の命が危険に晒されるので、「慰安婦」の捕獲の事を伝えるチラシ(*6)を使用しないよう求められた。
They did think it would be a good idea to utilize the fact of their capture in any droppings planned for Korea. (*7)
*6(投降を訴える為にばらまく物と思われる)
*7(理解出来んす)
英語の原文
UNITED STATES OFFICE OF WAR INFORMATION
Psychological Warfare Team
Attached to U.S.Army Forces India-Burma Theator
APO 689
Japanese Prisoner
of War Interrogation
Report No. 49. Place interrogated : Ledo Stookade
Date Interrogated : Aug. 20 - Sept. 10, 1944
Date of Report : October 1, 1944
By : T/3 Alex Yorichi
Prisoners : 20 Korean Comfort Girls
Date of Capture : August 10, 1944
Date of Arrival : August 15, 1994
at Stookade
PREFACE
This report is based on the information obtained from the interrogation of twenty Korean "comfort girls" and two Japanese civilians captured around the tenth of August, 1944 in the mopping up operations after the fall of Myitkyin a in Burma.
The report shows how the Japanese recruited these Korean "comfort girls", the conditions under which they lived and worked, their relations with and reaction to to the Japanese soldier, and their understanding of the military situation.
A "comfort girl" is nothing more than a prostitute or "professional camp follower" attached to the Japanese Army for the benefit of the soldiers.The word "comfort girl" is peculiar to the Japanese. Other reports show the "comfort girls" have been found wherever it was necessary for the Japanese Army to fight. This report however deals only with the Korean "comfort girls" recruited by the Japanese and attached to their Army in Burma. The Japanese are reported to have shipped some 703 of these girls to Burma in 1942.
RECRUITING;
Early in May of 1942 Japanese agents arrived in Korea for the purpose of enlisting Korean girls for "comfort service" in newly conquered Japanese territories in Southeast Asia. The nature of this "service" was not specified but it was assumed to be work connected with visiting the wounded in hospitals, rolling bandages, and generally making the soldiers happy. The inducement used by these agents was plenty of money, an opportunity to pay off the family debts, easy work, and the prospect of a new life in a new land, Singapore. On the basis of these false representaions many girls enlisted for overseas duty and were rewared with an advance of a few hundred yen.
The majority of the girls were ignorant and uneducated, although a few had been connected with "oldest profession on earth" before. The contract they signed bound them to Army regulations and to war for the "house master " for a period of from six monthes to a year depending on the family debt for which they were advanced ...
Approximatedly 800 of these girls were recruited in this manner and they landed with their Japanese "house master " at Rangoon around August 20th, 1942. They came in groups of from eight to twenty-two. From here they were distributed to various parts of Burma, usually to fair sized towns near Japanese Army camps.
Eventually four of these units reached the Myitkyina. They were, Kyoei, Kinsui, Bakushinro, and Momoya. The Kyoei house was called the "Maruyama Club", but was changed when the girls reached Myitkyina as Col.Maruyama, commander of the garrison at Myitkyina, objected to the similarity to his name.
PERSONALITY;
The interrogations show the average Korean "comfort girl" to be about twenty five years old, uneducated, childish, and selfish. She is not pretty either by Japanese of Caucasian standards. She is inclined to be egotistical and likes to talk about herself. Her attitude in front of strangers is quiet and demure, but she "knows the wiles of a woman." She claims to dislike her "profession" and would rather not talk either about it or her family. Because of the kind treatment she received as a prisoner from American soldiers at Myitkyina and Ledo, she feels that they are more emotional than Japanese soldiers. She is afraid of Chinese and Indian troops.
LIVING AND WORKING CONDITIONS;
In Myitkyina the girls were usually quartered in a large two story house(usually a school building) with a separate room for each girl. There each girl lived, slept, and transacted business. In Myitkina their food was prepared by and purchased from the "house master" as they received no regular ration from the Japanese Army. They lived in near-luxury in Burma in comparison to other places. This was especially true of their second year in Burma. They lived well because their food and material was not heavily rationed and they had plenty of money with which to purchase desired articles. They were able to buy cloth, shoes, cigarettes, and cosmotics to supplement the many gifts given to them by soldiers who had received "comfort bags" from home.
While in Burma they amused themselves by participating in sports events with both officers and men, and attended picnics, entertainments, and social dinners. They had a phono-graph and in the towns they were allowed to go shopping.
PRIOR SYSTEM;
The conditions under which they transacted business were regulated by the Army, and in congested areas regulations were strictly enforced. The Army found it necessary in congested areas to install a system of prices, priorities, and schedules for the various units operating in a particular areas. According to interregations the average system was as follows ;
1. Soldiers 10 AM to 5 PM 1.50 yen 20 to 30 minutes
2. NGOs 5 PM to 9 PM 3.00 yen 30 to 40 minutes
3. Officers 9 PM to 12 PM 5.00 yen 30 to 40 minutes
These were average prices in Central Burma. Officers were allowed to stay overnight for twenty yen. In Myitkyina Col. Maruyama slashed the prices to almost one-half of the average price.
SCHEDULES :
The soldiers often complained about congestion in the houses. In many situasions they were not served and had to leave as the army was very strict about overstaying . In order to overcome this problem the Army set aside certain days for certain units. Usually two men from the unit for the day were stationed at the house to identify soldiers. A roving MP was also on hand to keep order. Following is the schedule used by the "Kyoei" house for the various units of the 18th Division while at Naymyo.
Sunday ----- 18th Div. Hdqs. Staff
Monday ----- Cavalry
Thuesday ----- Engineers
Wednesday ----- Day off and weekly physical exam.
Thursday ----- Medios
Friday ----- Mountain artillery
Saturday ----- Transport
Officers were allowed to come seven nights a week. The girls complained that even with the schedule congestion was so great that they could not care for all guests, thus causing ill feeling among many of the soldiers.
Soldiers would come to the house, pay the price and get tickets of cardboard about two inches square with the prior on the left side and the name of the house on the other side. Each soldier's identity or rank was then established after which he "took his turn in line". The girls were allowed the prerogative of refusing a customer. This was often done if the person were too drunk.
PAY AND LIVING CONDITIONS;
The "house master" received fifty to sixty per cent of the girls' gross earnigs depending on how much of a de bt each girl had incurred when she signed her contract. This moant that in an average month a girl would gross about fifteen hundred yen. She turned over seven hundred and fifty to the "master". Many "masters" made life very difficult for the girls by charging them high prices for food and other articles.
In the latter part of 1943 the Army issued orders that certain girls who had paid their debt could return home. Some of the girls were thus allowed to return to Korea.
The interrogations further show that the health of these gilrs was good. They were well supplied with all types of contraceptives, and often soldiers would bring their own which had been supplied by the army. They were well trained in looking after both themselves and customers in the matter of hycine. A regular Japanese Army doctor visited the houses once a week and any girl found diseased was given treatment, secluded, and eventually sent to a hospital. This same procedure was carried on within the ranks of the Army itself, but it is interesting to note that a soldier did not lose pay during the period he was confined.
In their relations with the Japanese officers and men only two names of any consequence came out of interrogations. They were those of Col. Maruyama, commander of the garrison at Myitkyina. and Maj.Gen.Mizukami, who brought in reinforcements. The two were exact opposites. The former was hard, selfish and repulsive with no consideration for his men; the latter a good, kind man and a fine soldier, with the utmost consideration for those who worked under him. The Colonel was a constant habitue of the houses while the General was never known to have visited them. With the fall of Myitkyina, Col. Maruyama supposedly desorted while Gen. Mizukami committed sucide because he could not evacuate the men.
SOLDIERS REACTIONS;
The average Japanese soldier is embarrassed about being seen in a "comfort house" acoording to one of the girls who said, "when the place is packed he is apt to be ashamed if he has to wait in line for his turn". However there were numerous instances of proposals of marriage and in certain cases marriages actually took place.
All the girls agreed that the worst officers and men who came to see them were those who were drunk and leaving for the front the following day. But all likewise agreed that even though very drunk the Japanese soldier never discussed military matters or secrets with them. Though the girls might start the conversation about some military matter the officer or enlisted man would not talk, but would in fact "scold us for discussing such un-lady like subjects. Even Col.Maru yama when drunk would never discuss such matters."
The soldiers would often express how much they enjoyed receiving magazines, letters and newspapers from home. They also mentioned the receipt of "comfort bags" filled with canned goods, magazines, soap, handkerchiefs, toothbrush, miniature doll, lipstick, and wooden clothes. The lipstick and cloths were feminin and the girls couldn't understand why the people at home were sending such articles. They speculated that the sender could only have had themselves or the "native girls".
MILITARY SITUATION;
"In the initial attack on Myitleyna and the airstrip about two hundred Japanese died in battle, leaving about two hundred to defend the town. Ammunition was very low.
"Col.Maruyama dispersed his men. During the following days the enemy were shooting haphazardly everywhere. It was a waste since they didn't seem to aim at any particular thing. The Japanese soldiers on the other hand had orders to fire one shot at a time and only when they were sure of a hit."
Before the enemy attacked on the west airstrip, soldiers stationed around Myitkyina were dispatched elsewhere, to stom the Allied attack in the North and West. About four hundred men were left behind, largely from the 114th Regiment. Evid ently Col.Maruyama did not expect the town to be attacked. Later Maj.Gen.Mizukami of the 56th Division brought in reinfo rcements of more than two regiments but these were unable to hold the town.
It was the concensus among the girls that Allied bombings were intense and frightening and because of them they spent most of their last days in foxholes. One or two even carried on work there. The comfort houses were bombed and several of the girls were wounded and killed.
RETREAT AND CAPTURE;
The story of the retreat and final capture of the "comfort girls" is somewhat vague and confused in their own minds. From various reports it appears that the following occurred: on the night of July 31st a party of sixty three people including the "comfort girls" of three houses(Bakushinro was merged with Kinsui), families, and helpers, started across the Irrawaddy River in small boats. They eventually landed somewhere near Waingmaw, They stayed there until August 4th, but never entered Waingmaw. From there they followed in the path of a group of soldiers until August 7th when there was a skirmish with the enemy and the party split up. The girls were ordered to follow the soldiers after three hour interval. They did this only to find themselves on the bank of a river with no sign of the soldiers or any mea ns of crossing. They remained in a nearby house until August 10th when they were captured by Kaahin soldiers led by an English officer. They were taken to Myitleyina and then to the Ledo stockado where the interrogation which form the basis of this report took place.
REQUESTS;
None of the girls appeared to have heard the loudspeaker used at Myitkyina but very did overhear the soldiers mention a "radio broadcast"
They asked that leaflets telling of the capture of the "comfort girls" should not be used for it would endanger the lives of other girls if the Army knew of their capture. They did think it would be a good idea to utilise the fact of their capture in any droppings planned for Korea.
The tears trickle down Virginia Villarma's weathered face as she recalls the day back in 1943 when she lost her youth and her innocence.
Sent out by her aunt to get some food she was attacked by a group of Japanese soldiers on a suburban Manila street and tossed like an animal into the back of a jeep.
Then just 14 years old, she was taken to a barracks in the port area and thrown into a bare room where she was stripped and raped repeatedly by soldiers, three or four at a time.
At first she screamed and tried to fight off her attackers but they punched and kicked her tiny body until she passed out. When Villarma awoke the room was silent but the pain has stayed with her for ever.
"That is when my hell began," the soft-spoken 78-year-old grandmother told AFP as she wrapped and unwrapped a pink handkerchief around her fingers.
Occasionally she would stop and take off her gold rimmed glasses and dab her eyes.
"I want people to know what happened to us back then and why we who are left will never give up until Japan formally apologises to all of us -- living and dead -- for what they did.
"For three months I was abused from morning to night. They were the longest three months of my life."
An allied bombing raid saved Villarma from more abuse and in the confusion she managed to escape but her life had been changed forever.
In later years, when her husband found out she had been a sex slave for the Japanese, he walked out on her and their five children.
When Prime Minister Shinzo Abe told parliament earlier this month there was no evidence Japanese troops forced sex slaves into brothels during the Second World War he again turned the spotlight on a large group of women who have become known as the "forgotten ones."
They came from many parts of Asia, some are now dead, many could never marry because of the shame, some were so brutalized they could never have children while others just shut themselves away from society all together.
Japan would prefer to ignore this part of its war time history but grey haired women like Villarma and her friend Simeona Ramil, 79, also brutalized as a sex slave, will never allow Japan to forget.
From Indonesia to China as many as 200,000 women, some as young as 12, were used as sex slaves according to a report by Amnesty International in 2005.
Despite the widespread prevalence of what was essentially institutionalised rape the issue of comfort women was ignored by the International Military Tribunal for the Far East that was established after the war to prosecute Japanese war criminals.
-- "He played with me as a cat would with a mouse" --
For decades these women remained silent hoping the nightmares would go away.
Only in the 1990s did survivors start to speak out about their ordeal.
Women like Jan Ruff-O'Herne, born in Java in 1923 in what was then known as the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia), has become an international advocate for the protection of women in war.
She was 19 when the Japanese invaded Indonesia.
Together with thousands of women and children she was interned in a prison camp for three and a half years.
"Many stories have been told about the horrors, brutalities, suffering and starvation of Dutch women in Japanese prison camps," she told the US House of Representatives' hearing on "Protecting the Human Rights of Comfort Women" in February.
"But one story was never told, the most shameful story of the worst human rights abuse committed by the Japanese during World War II ... the story of the 'comfort women' and how these women were forcibly seized against their will, to provide sexual services for the Japanese Imperial Army."
Now living in Australia where she has a grown family, Ruff-O'Herne told how in 1944 high ranking Japanese officers arrived at the camp and selected 10 "pretty girls".
"I was one of the 10," she said. Despite protests from their families the girls were packed into the back of a truck and driven to a Dutch colonial house used by the Japanese as a brothel.
"We were a very innocent generation," she told the congressmen.
"I knew nothing about sex. The horrific memories of 'opening night' of the brothel have tortured my mind all my life.
"We were told to go to the dining room, and we huddled together in fear, as we saw the house filling up with military. I got out my prayer book and led the girls in prayer in the hope that this would help us.
"Then they started to drag us away, one by one. I could hear the screaming coming from the bedrooms. I hid under the table, but was soon found. I fought him. I kicked him with all my might.
"The Japanese officer became angry because I would not give myself to him. He took his sword out of its scabbard and pointed it at me, threatening me.
"I curled myself into a corner, like a hunted animal that could not escape.
"He then threw me on the bed and ripped off all my clothes. He ran his sword all over my naked body, and played with me as a cat would with a mouse.
"I still tried to fight him, but he thrust himself on top of me, pinning me down under his heavy body. The tears were streaming down my face as he raped me in a most brutal way. I thought he would never stop.
"When he eventually left the room, my whole body was shaking. I gathered up what was left of my clothing, and fled into the bathroom.
"There I found some of the other girls. We were all crying, and in total shock. In the bathroom I tried to wash away all the dirt and the shame off my body. Just wash it away.
"But the night was not over, there were more Japanese waiting, and this went on all night. It was only the beginning, week after week, month after month."
Gil Won-Ock, an 80-year-old South Korean woman, still suffers from flashbacks and nightmares.
"Whenever those vivid, terrifying memories are brought back my heart beats suddenly and I cannot breathe," she told AFP, gasping for breath.
She said Abe only "added insult to injury" when he questioned whether comfort women were forced to serve as wartime sex slaves.
-- Japanese denials add to decades of silent agony --
"How could a human being say things like that?" she asked.
Gil is among a handful of former comfort women who have been meeting outside the Japanese embassy in central Seoul every Wednesday for the past 15 years in a vigil to press Tokyo to officially apologise and pay compensation.
Gil was 13 years old when she was lured by bogus promises of work at a factory and confined to a shack near a Japanese military barracks in the northeastern part of China that housed many other Chinese and Korean girls.
"Because of the infections in the wounds I received in the productive organ, I had to undergo operations four times and had my womb removed," Gil said.
Lee Yong-Soo was 16 when she was "kidnapped" in the southeastern Korean city of Daegu by a Japanese soldier in 1944 and shipped to a brothel in Taiwan.
She was raped, beaten and tortured with electricity when she attempted to escape.
The Wednesday rally recently drew several Japanese activists, including Hiroko Tsubokawa.
"We urge the Japanese government to stop adding pain to those grandmothers (comfort women) and solve this issue immediately," she told the crowd.
Japan has never formally apologized for its sex slavery.
In 1995 it established the Asian Women's Fund but the fund's restriction to private sector donations was seen as the government evading its responsibility.
When Abe said there was no evidence that women had been coerced into sexual slavery, he appeared to be contradicting a statement in 1993 by a senior official in which he voiced "sincere apologies and remorse" acknowledging that Japan's Imperial Army was involved "directly or indirectly" in sexual slavery.
But in the ensuing controversy, Abe has insisted that he does stand by the 1993 apology.
Su Zhiliang, director of the Chinese Comfort Women Research Centre, said: "Abe's remarks are nonsense. Maybe he had some political purpose."
For the most part only a few Chinese women have come forward to tell their story not wanting to bring shame on their families, Su said.
Su claims there were more than 400,000 comfort women in Asia of which 200,000 were Chinese, figures that contradict estimates by groups like Amnesty.
"Many of the victims do not want to recall the nightmare again, that is why so many choose to keep silent," he said.
Four cases filed since 1995 on behalf of Chinese women have all failed in the Japanese courts.
In Taiwan between 1,000 and 2,000 women were forced into sexual slavery, according to lawyer Wang Ching-feng who heads the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation.
Since 1992, however, only 45 women have come forward.
"Some of them died abroad, some killed themselves for what they regarded as shame they have brought to their families, others dared not to let their family or relatives know what they had done before and chose to bury their pain and agony in their minds," Wang told AFP.
She said the Japanese government "must apologise" to the victims and compensate them or their relatives.
"It (the Japanese government) has a moral as well as a legal responsibility," she said.
Now the case has been taken up by US Democratic congressman Michael Honda who is trying to push a motion through the House of Representatives calling on Japan to make a "formal" apology.
"These women have too long been denied their dignity and honour," he told the House in February.
Filipina comfort women Virginia Villarma, 78, holds her portrait taken in her younger years as she sat at at the Lila-Filipina, a shelter and support group for surviving comfort women
c 2007 AFP - Jez Aznar
c 2007 AFP - Romeo Gacad
Filipina comfort women Simeona Ramil, (L), 79, and Virginia Villarma, 78, sit together at the Lila-Filipina, a shelter and support group for surviving comfort women in Manila