Japan's Comfort Women (24 page)

Why did US forces ignore the issue?

105

Plate 4.4
The Japanese knew the tension between American and Australian soldiers over Australian women, and tried to exploit this situation in order to further enhance the antagonism between two groups of the Allied forces. To this end, they produced various propaganda leaflets and left them in the battlefield in New Guinea, hoping to demoralize the Australian soldiers who would read them.

Source
: Australian War Memorial, Japanese leaflets 7/42/3

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Why did US forces ignore the issue?

Criticism, cover-up and a change in the War
Department’s attitude

Although they were probably in a minority, there were certainly some men within the US forces who also felt disgraced by their fellow soldiers’ sexual conduct. In their letters home to priests, some soldiers in overseas forces mentioned the organized prostitution for their own troops. For example, in December 1943, a Catholic soldier at a US Army base somewhere in North Africa wrote to Reverend Edmond Kramer in New York: The Chaplain Dr. Kilbride, and the Catholic Boys of this Base are fighting our Army official for establishing a house of prostitution here as well as in the Base north of here. . . .

Father, you know the old saying: “when in Rome do as the Romans do”.

Well, that’s just what’s happening here. They say: “The French have them, so can we”. They also say that it’s necessary for a man to satisfy his desires, especially a married man.69

Some other Catholic soldiers at the same base wrote similar letters to their own priests at home. Those priests in turn passed this information to US Senator Robert Wagner and Congressman Hamilton Fish, asking them to investigate this matter. In response to the queries made by these two Congressmen as to War Department policy concerning prostitution, Colonel G. Ordway, Jr. (Assistant Executive of Operations Division) wrote a memo explaining that: It is recommended that the reply to Congressman Fish, as well as the other members of Congress who have inquired in a similar vein, should state in substance that houses of prostitution are not being operated by United States forces in Africa and that the War Department is definitely against the establishment or operation of houses of prostitution in North Africa and everywhere else.70

Another senior officer of Operations Division wrote a memo to General Hull, saying that:

Since this brothel business could be very explosive indeed, . . . we should take every possible step to avoid a scandal. Particularly, we should avoid any semblance of equivocation. We should, therefore, query both Algeria and Cairo for the facts. If a denial from both theaters should be received, the War Dept. would be able to end the matter once and for all by making a categorical denial of Fish’s accusation.71

The War Department communicated
pro forma
with the commanders of the troops in question, and of course those commanders denied and dismissed such allegations.72 It is interesting to note, however, that the expression “
houses of
Why did US forces ignore the issue?

107

prostitution are not being operated by United States forces in Africa
” could be interpreted as having a hidden meaning. It is possible to argue that this statement is correct: the brothels for American soldiers in Africa were not run by the US forces – rather they were operated by private businesses for the exclusive use of Americans. Indeed, that was the real situation, as described in the Brumfield Report. There is no doubt at all that senior staff of the War Department, when confronted with criticism from some church leaders and Congressmen, tried to cover up this fact by obtaining “suitable” answers from the commanders of the troops in North Africa.

In September 1944, one US Army soldier stationed in France wrote a letter home to his clergyman, condemning General Gerhart who “had taken it upon himself to open a house of prostitution for the soldiers of the 29th Division.” This information was passed on to Right Reverend Mgr. Michael Ready (General Secretary of the National Catholic Welfare Conference), who subsequently questioned Secretary of War Henry Stimson about this matter. The War Department reported that an investigation found that “
through some error
a house of prostitution in the 29th Division area was allowed to open not off limits for the 29th Division but that the Division Commander, General Gerhart, discovered this fact four hours later and place was closed” [emphasis added]. The words “through some error” sound a poor excuse, and there is no evidence that the War Department conducted a thorough investigation on this matter. Yet, the War Department concluded that it “can safely consider this incident closed” and recommended that “no further action be taken.”73

In January 1945, the Chief of Chaplains informed the War Department that a brothel called the “Pink House” had been operated outside of Noumea on the island of New Caledonia in the Southwest Pacific. Apparently this brothel had been “operating with the full consent of the local military and naval authorities to such an extent that army medical and military police personnel have been assigned to various duties in connection with its operation.”74 In fact, in June 1944, the Chief of Chaplains had previously complained about this matter and requested that the War Department take appropriate action to correct the situation, but no action had been taken. At last, on February 17, 1945, Colonel C. E.

Hixon (Director of Military Personnel Division) instructed the Commanding General of Pacific Ocean Area to investigate the matter. He stated that if the report was true, appropriate action should be taken.75 It is not clear from the available documents what sort of action was eventually taken in this case. However, the fact that the War Department did not do anything at all for almost eight months from the time the Chief of Chaplains first complained about this problem clearly indicates the reluctance of the War Department to investigate such allegations, not to mention taking any action to suppress such organized prostitution.

It is clear from these examples that the War Department maintained a dual policy in responding to various allegations, even as late in the war as February 1945. On the one hand, official policy promoted a ban of any form of organized prostitution controlled by US forces. On the other hand, such activities were not 108

Why did US forces ignore the issue?

only massively condoned but institutionally supported, above all through the mass provision of prophylactics for overseas troops, but also through a practice of cover-up to shield against complaints. However, a change appeared in attitudes in late April 1945. This can be verified with a secret order from the Adjutant General, Major General J. A. Ulio, which was issued on April 25, 1945

to Commander-in-Chief of Southwest Pacific Area as well as to Commanding Generals of five different army organizations. Some excerpts from this document state:

1

Numerous unconfirmed reports have reached the War Department that in various overseas theaters the army has participated, and in certain areas is now participating, in the operation, supervision, sanction, designation, or condoning of brothels – so-called “G-I. Houses of Prostitution” – for the convenience of military personnel and for the purpose of venereal disease control. . . .

2

It is recognized that the social chaos among civilians existing in most overseas theaters presents unusually difficult problems in adjustment of relationship between soldiers and civilians, and that in many areas it is not practicable for the army to take action which will materially reduce contact between soldiers and prostitution. . . .

3

It has been repeatedly demonstrated that the toleration or fostering of organized prostitution is a completely ineffective method of controlling venereal disease, and that on the contrary prostitution contributes to a materially higher incidence of these diseases, especially among troops stationed in foreign countries. Furthermore, the operation of brothels under the partial or complete control or supervision of the army, or their designation for the use of military personnel is medically unsound, socially objectionable, potentially destructive of civilian and military morale, and in direct contravention of War Department policy.

4

It is therefore desired that necessary action be taken to assure compli-ance in your command with War Department policy concerning re-pression of prostitution by all means of available cooperation with civilian authorities in the countries concerned; and where civilian cooperation cannot be obtained, to employ all appropriate military measures to minimize the availability of prostitutes to military personnel.76

This order issued by the Adjutant General was the first of its kind in which War Department official policy was reaffirmed and emphasized, and instructions issued by one of the top staff of the Department for the suppression of military prostitution. Yet it is interesting to note that Major General Ulio still thought that “in many areas” it was “not practicable” to suppress the business of prostitution. It is also interesting to read his opinion that organized prostitution controlled by the Army was “a completely ineffective method of controlling venereal disease.” As we have seen, military-controlled prostitution did in fact contribute to the reduction of VD rates among Allied troops
in certain area to some extent
.

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109

Major General Ulio presumably knew this fact from various internal reports such as that written by Brumfield.

The question arises as to why Major General Ulio suddenly tried to abolish the dual policy and introduce stricter measures to suppress organized prostitution for American soldiers. One reason for this could be found in the state of the armed conflict, both in Europe and the Pacific. By this time, it was almost certain that the fall of Nazi power in the European theater was only a matter of time. US forces were advancing in various places in Europe and their contact with civilians suddenly increased. In the Pacific theater, too, large numbers of American soldiers were now in the Philippines and Okinawa, and control of large civilian populations became an important issue for the war administrators.

It is quite possible that military leaders in the War Department gradually realized that it would be harmful for the US forces openly to operate military brothels in those areas and thus invite criticism from local civilians. However, it is not certain how much attention the Commanding Generals gave this order.

From this evidence, we see that the US forces widely used organized prostitution, controlled by themselves, as a VD prevention method during the war. They saw organized prostitution also as a means to improve troop morale with relative safety. It was evident also after the war – the topic we will examine in Chapter 6

of this book. It was therefore quite natural that they were completely unable to discern the criminal nature of the comfort women system implemented by the Japanese Imperial forces during the war – one of the most significant crimes against humanity in our history.

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Japanese women: 1945–1946

5

Sexual violence committed

by the Allied occupation

forces against Japanese

women: 1945–1946

Sexual violence prior to the Allied occupation of

Japan

There is no documentary evidence of mass rape by the Allied soldiers during the Pacific War. Although it is possible that some incidents have been censored or removed from the records, it is clear that such incidents were relatively limited, except in the final stage of the war. Although no relevant
official
documents exist, either on the US or on the Japanese side, there are numerous, credible testimonies of Okinawan women who were gang-raped by American soldiers during and after the Battle of Okinawa, the last battle in the Pacific War and the only one fought on Japanese soil.

The Battle of Okinawa, or “Operation Iceberg,” as it was known in the US

military, was the fiercest battle of the Pacific War. The US mobilized 548,000

men and 1,600 ships for this operation and fired 40,000 artillery shells from the sea during the seven days prior to April 1, the day that they landed on the main island of the Ryukyu (Okinawan) Islands.1 At the time, the Japanese Imperial forces had only 86,400 men, with as little as 410 artillery pieces and 40 tanks on this island. Despite the vast difference in manpower and equipment between the two forces, the battle lasted two and a half months. The Japanese hunkered down doggedly in caves and huge lyre-shaped tombs, both of which are typical Okinawan features. They hid during the daytime, but came out and attacked the Americans at night.2 In the end, American casualties totaled about 50,000, including 14,000 deaths. In addition, a few thousand US soldiers had to be withdrawn from the battlefield because of severe psychological problems. Japan lost 66,000 soldiers (76.4 percent death rate) in this battle, and a further 4,400