Chinese Comfort Women (38 page)

23
Okabe Naozaburō,
Okabe Naozaburō taishō no nikki
[General Okabe Naozaburō diary] (Tokyo: Fuyō shobō, 1982), 23. Cf. See also the translation of this passage in Yoshimi,
Comfort Women
, 45.

24
Inaba Masao, ed.,
Okamura Yasuji taishō shiryō: Senjō kaisō hen, jō
[Sources of General Okamura Yasuji: Recollections of the battlefield, vol. 1] (Tokyo: Hara shobō, 1970), 302. Many scholars have discussed why Okamura chose to draft comfort women from Nagasaki and suggested that this had to do with the history of the area. Nagasaki was known as the hometown of a large number of
karayuki-san
, women of poor families who had been sold to overseas brothels or had worked as indentured prostitutes in many Asian countries since the Meiji period. See, for example, Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu
, 45; Su,
Weianfu yanjiu
, 23-40; Tanaka,
Japan’s Comfort Women
, 10.

25
Yoshimi Yoshiaki, “Jūgun ianfu to Nihon kokka” [Military comfort women and the Japanese nation-state], in
Jūgun ianfu shiryōshū
[A collection of documents on military comfort women] (Tokyo: Otsuki shoten, 1992), 28-50.

26
Translation of this title follows Suzanne O’Brien’s translation of Yoshimi,
Comfort Women
, 58. The discussion here also owes much to O’Brien’s translation.

27
Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu shiryōshū
, 105-6.

28
Ibid.

29
Yang Tianshi, “Chiang Kai-shek and the Battles of Shanghai and Nanjing,” in Peattie et al.,
Battle for China
, 143.

30
Zhang,
Zhongguo kang-Ri zhanzheng shi
, 229-58.

31
Yang, “Chiang Kai-shek,” 146.

32
Ibid., 147.

33
Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, “An Overview of Major Campaigns during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945,” in Peattie et al.,
Battle for China
, 31.

34
Ibid.

35
Ibid.

36
Many books and research articles have detailed the atrocities committed by the Japanese forces in and around Nanjing at this time. See, for example, John Rabe,
The Good Man of Nanking: The Diaries of John Rabe
(New York: Knopf Publishing Group, 1998); Hora Tomio,
Nankin daigyakusatsu: Ketteihan
[Nanjing massacre: An authoritative edition (Tokyo: Gendaishi shuppankai, 1982); Nankin jiken chōsa kenkyū kai, ed.,
Nankin jiken shiryōshū
[Documents on the Nanjing incident] (Tokyo: Aoki Shoten, 1992); Iris Chang,
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II
(New York: Penguin Group, 1998); Honda Katsuichi,
The Nanjing Massacre: A Japanese Journalist Confronts Japan’s National Shame
(London: M.E. Sharpe, 1999); Yang Daqing, “Atrocities in Nanjing: Searching for Explanations,” in
Scars of War: The Impact of Warfare on Modern China
, ed. Diana Lary and Stephen MacKinnon (Vancouver: UBC Press, 2001), 76-96; and Suping Lu,
They Were in Nanjing: The Nanjing Massacre Witnessed by American and British Nationals
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004). On the other hand, conservatives and nationalists in Japan have denied the occurrence of the Nanjing Massacre. For a detailed study of the debate, see Takashi Yoshida,
The Making of the “Rape of Nanking”: History and Memory in Japan, China, and the United States
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006).

37
Chinese sources generally estimate that more than 300,000 Chinese citizens and unarmed soldiers were killed during the massacre. A newly unearthed document in the US archives reveals that William Edward Dodd, the US ambassador in Germany, reported in his telegram to the president of the United States on 14 Dcember 1937 that Shigenori Tōgō, a Japanese ambassador in Germany, said the Japanese army had killed 500,000 Chinese people. See Yuan Xinwen, “Nanjing datusha zai tian tiezheng” [New evidence of the Nanjing massacre],
Renmin ribao
, 6 December 2007.

38
HyperWar Foundation, “HyperWar: International Military Tribunal for the Far East,” IMTFE Judgement (English Translation),
Chapter 8
, “Conventional War Crimes (Atrocities),” 1015. Available at
http://ibiblio.org/
(viewed 26 April 2008).

39
Ibid., 1012. The Chinese Nationalist government’s investigation indicated a much larger number, determining that approximately eighty-thousand Chinese women were raped during the Nanjing massacre. See Zhu Chengshan, “Nanjing datusha shi Rijun dui renlei wenming shehui de jiti fanzui,” [Japanese army’s collective crimes against humanity during the Nanjing massacre], in
Taotian zuinie: Erzhan shiqi de Rijun weianfu zhidu
[Monstrous atrocities: The Japanese military comfort women system during the Second World War], ed. Su Zhiliang, Rong Weimu, and Chen Lifei (Shanghai: Xuelin chubanshe, 2000), 128.

40
Rabe,
Good Man of Nanking
, 81. Format as it is published.

41
Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu shiryōshū
, 210.

42
According to the Japanese military codes, those who committed rape would be punished, receiving a sentence ranging from seven years imprisonment to death. See Yuma Totani,
The Tokyo War Crimes Trial: The Pursuit of Justice in the Wake of World War II
(Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2008), 120.

43
Aiko Utsumi, “How the Violence against Women Were Dealt with in War Crime Trials,” in
Common Grounds: Violence against Women in War and Armed Conflict Situations
(Quezon: Asian Center for Women’s Human Rights, 1998), 191.

44
Totani,
Tokyo War Crimes Trial
, 120. See also, Eguchi Keiichi,
Jūgonen sensō shōshi
[A history of the fifteen-year war] (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1986), 117; Kasahara Tokushi,
Nankin jiken
[The Nanjing incident] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1997), 191-200.

45
Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu
, 23.

46
Nankin jiken chôsa kenkyûkai, ed.,
Nankin jiken shiryō shū
, [Documents on the Nanjing incident] (Tokyo: Aoki shoten, 1992), 411; cited and translated by Tanaka in
Japan’s Comfort Women
, 13.

47
Jiang Gonggu,
Xian jing sanyue ji
[The fall of the capital: A journal of the three months], private publication, August 1938. Reprint: (Nanjing: Nanjing chubanshe, 2006), 14-24.

48
Susan Brownmiller,
Against Our Will: Men, Women and Rape
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1975), 58.

49
Li Shimin, “Qiao Hongnian choushe weiansuo” [Qiao Hongnian prepared and set up comfort stations],
Dadi zhoubao
[Land weekly] 31 (1946): 2.

50
Chen Juan, “Nanjing Rijun ‘weianfu’ zhidu de shishi” [The implementation of the Japanese military “comfort women” system in Nanjing], in Su et al.,
Taotian zuinie
, 157-58.

51
Jing Shenghong, “Qin-Hua Rijun zai Nanjing shishi ‘weianfu’ zhidu shimo” [The Japanese invaders’ implementation of the “comfort women” system in Nanjing] in Su et al.,
Taotian zuinie
, 166-67.

52
Chen Juan, “Nanjing Rijun,” in Su et al,
Taotian zuinie
, 158.

53
Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu
, 25.

54
Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu shiryōshū
, 195-96.

55
Many researchers have made this observation. See, for example, Senda Kakō,
Jūgun ianfu
[Military comfort women] (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1984), 72-76; Chin Sung Chung, “Korean
Women Drafted for Military Sexual Slavery by Japan,” in
True Stories of the Korean Comfort Women
, ed. Keith Howard (London: Cassell, 1995), 16-17.

56
After the outbreak of the Pacific War, women from other Asian-Pacific regions, including the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, East Timor, Malaya, Burma, and Vietnam, were also forced to be comfort women for the Japanese military.

57
Asō Tetsuo,
Shanhai yori Shanhai e: Heitan byōyin no sanfujinkai
[From Shanghai to Shanghai: A gynecologist at the commissariat hospital] (Fukuoka: Sekifūsha, 1993), 215.

58
Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu shiryōshū
, 183-84, and 258-68.

59
Hokushi keimubu, “Hōjin shokugyōbetsu jinkō tōkeihyō” [Statistics of population by occupations in northern China], 1 July 1939, in Gaimushō gaikō shiryōkan [Foreign Ministry Diplomacy Archive]; cited in Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu
, 30-31.

60
Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu shiryōshū
, 214-15.

61
Kinbara Setsuzō, “Rikugunshō gyōmu nisshi tekiroku” [Excerpts from the work logs of the Department of the Army], entry for 15 April 1939, kept in Bōeichō Bōei kenkyūjo toshokan. Cited in Yoshimi,
Jūgun ianfu
, 32.

62
Shanghaishi City Archive, document no. R36,
Quanzong 1 hao mulu
. For detailed information, see Chen Zhengqin and Zhuang Zhiling, “Dang’an zhong faxian de youguan Shanghai Rijun ‘weianfu’ wenti” [Newly discovered archival evidence of the Japanese military ‘comfort women’ in Shanghai], in Su et al.,
Taotian zuinie
, 110-22.

63
Su Zhiliang, Chen Lifei, and Yao Fei,
Shanghai Rijun weiansuo shilu
[Investigative records of Japanese military comfort stations in Shanghai] (Shanghai: Shanghai sanlian shudian, 1995), 2-3.

64
The Third Report of Committee on the Investigation of the Victimization of Former Chinese Comfort Women, published on All China Lawyers Association website,
www.ACLA.org
(viewed on 30 June 2010).

65
“Shanghai de diyu – Dikou xinglesuo” [A hell in Shanghai – the enemy’s entertainment facility] in
Dagongbao
, 27 February 1938, cited in Li Xiuping,
Shiwan weianfu
[One hundred thousand comfort women] (Beijing: Renmin Zhongguo chubanshe, 1993), 34.

66
Gao Xingzu, “Rijun Nanjing qiangjian shijian yu weiansuo de chuxian” [The rapes committed by Japanese forces in Nanjing and the establishment of the comfort stations], in Su et al.,
Taotian zuinie
, 123-26.

67
Su,
Weianfu yanjiu
, 124-30.

Chapter 2: The Mass Abduction of Chinese Women

1
This summary of these battles is based on Edward J. Drea and Hans van de Ven, “An Overview of Major Military Campaigns during the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-1945.” In
The Battle for China: Essays on the Military History of the Sino-Japanese War of 1937-1945
, ed. Mark Peattie, Edward J. Drea, and Hans van de Ven (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), 33-35.

2
The war resulted in enormous casualties in China, for which there is no accurate number, although figures of between 20 million and 30 million are widely used. See Stephen R. MacKinnon, Diana Lary, and Ezra Vogel, eds.
China at War: Regions of China, 1937-1945
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 1-2. China’s official statistics for the total Chinese civilian and military casualties during the Japanese invasion from 1937 to 1945 are about 35 million: 20 million dead and 15 million wounded. See Guo Rugui, Huang Yuzhang, and Tian Zhaolin,
Zhongguo kang-Ri zhanzheng zhengmian zhanchang zuozhan ji
[Major battles during China’s Resistance War] (Nanjing: Jiangxu renmin chubanshe, 2001), 31.

3
Complete statistics on Chinese forced labour during the Japanese invasion are not available. According to the Japanese Foreign Ministry Report, beginning in April 1943, as the draft had resulted in severe labour shortages, 38,935 Chinese men between the ages of
eleven and seventy-eight were brought to Japan to advance Japan’s war effort by performing harsh physical labour in mines and on construction sites and docks from Kyūshū to Hokkaidō. Within barely two years, 17.5 percent of them had died. Some individual work-sites posted death rates in excess of 50 percent. The official fatality figure of 6,830 excludes the thousands of victims who died in China during detention or while trying to escape prior to reaching the coast. See William Underwood, “Chinese Forced Labor, the Japanese Government and the Prospects for Redress,”
Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
, available at
http://www.japanfocus.org/
(viewed 2 July 2010).

4
Sakurada Takeshi and Shikanai Nobutaka,
Ima akasu sengo hishi
, vol. 1 [A secret postwar history now revealed] (Tokyo: Sankei shuppan, 1983), 40-41, cited in Yoshimi Yoshiaki,
Jūgun ianfu
[Military comfort women] (Tokyo: Iwanami shoten, 1995), 37.

5
It was believed that the term came from the pronunciation of “p” in “prostitute.” Another explanation is that it was an imitation of the sound of a Chinese slang word for female genitals.

6
Senda Kakō,
Jūgun ianfu
[Military comfort women] (Tokyo: Kōdansha, 1984), 72-76. The military physician Asō Tetsuo, who conducted medical examinations of the comfort women at Yangjiazhai comfort station, wrote: “The special military comfort station is not a place for hedonistic pleasure; it is a hygienic public toilet.” See Asō Tetsuo,
Shanhai yori Shanhai e: Heitan byōin no sanfujinkai
[From Shanghai to Shanghai: A gynecologist at the commissariat hospital] (Fukuoka: Sekifūsha, 1993), 222.