Japan's Comfort Women (30 page)

2

The above-mentioned limited quarters should be determined by the [prefectural] police chief, and prohibit Japanese subjects from using the facilities.

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The police chief should actively give guidance in management of the following facilities and promote their rapid expansion.

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Sexual comfort facilities

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Eating and drinking facilities

•

Recreation centres

4

Recruit the women required for the business from geisha, licensed and unlicensed prostitutes, waitresses, barmaids, habitual illicit prostitutes and the like.4

Before and during the war, Japan had a licensed prostitution system under which the Metropolitan Police Headquarters in Tokyo and each prefectural police division had the authority to regulate prostitution in its own area by issuing licences to brothel owners and prostitutes and at the same time suppressing unlicensed prostitution. The above-mentioned document, therefore, clearly indicates that prefectural police chiefs were now instructed to recruit unlicensed prostitutes rather than cracking down on their clandestine business. Towards the
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end of the Pacific War, due to the government policy of promoting nationwide sumptuary regulations, each prefectural police division was not only tightening the control of clandestine operations but also encouraging licensed brothel owners and prostitutes to change their occupations. Yet, just three days after Japan’s surrender, they were told the opposite – to secure enough comfort women for the expected Allied troops.

The reaction of each prefectural police division to this government instruction can be found in the official history of various prefectural police forces.5

In Hokkaido,

the recruitment [of comfort women] was carried out mainly through labor brokers, but as it was a matter of great account, police officers were also directly engaged in this task. In other words, officers checked the names and addresses of former licensed prostitutes from the list held in the police stations, visited the villages in the mountain and seacoast areas where these women lived, gave them blankets, socks and sugar, and asked their cooperation by persuading them to work again for the sake of the nation and for the [safety]

of the Japanese people.6

By early October, more than 320 former prostitutes, as well as more than 450

working prostitutes were mobilized as comfort women in Hokkaido. The author of the official history of the Hokkaido police proudly stated: Thus the special comfort stations for the occupation troops, set up as an emergency measure, was utilized to maximum degree, and the number of women victims of [sexual violence committed by the occupation troops] in the general population was therefore kept to the minimum.7

The Hokkaido police were also involved in setting up “beer halls” (i.e. bars), restaurants and dance halls for the occupation troops. The total number of women employed at these facilities, including comfort women, was 2,391.8

In Akita and Toyama prefectures the police had difficulty in securing enough comfort women within their own districts. Thus, in Akita, in collaboration with the police force, some staff members of the public relations department of the prefectural government were dispatched to neighboring Aomori and Iwate prefectures to recruit women there.9 In Toyama, the prefectural police office assisted the labor brokers to recruit women from Kyoto and Osaka. By the end of October, when the occupation troops arrived in Toyama, 251 “restaurants,”

each staffed with about 50 comfort women, had been set up in various places in the prefecture.10 In the Tsuchiura district of Ibaragi prefecture, no appropriate building could be found for use as a comfort station. Thus, as a last resort, the chief of the Tsuchiura city police station, Superintendent Ikeda Hirohiko, decided to convert the single policemen’s dormitory into a comfort station. The dormitory was quickly vacated and renovated, and bedding was brought in from a 136

Japanese comfort women for the Allied forces
Japanese Navy-Air Force compound in Kasumigaura, another city in the same prefecture. This unusual “brothel,” made up of police accommodation and navy equipment started its business in late September with 20 comfort women.11

In Hy
d
go prefecture, 15 officers under the supervision of the chief of the Public Security Section, Okamoto Takeshi, were assigned to set up comfort stations and recruit comfort women. They summoned the representatives of licensed brothels, nightclubs, and restaurant owners in Kobe city, and instructed them to recruit 1,000 comfort women. At the same time they assisted these businessmen to secure several major buildings in the city to convert them into “leisure centres,” each of which would accommodate a comfort station, a dance hall, a bar, a cabaret, a coffee shop, a Western-style restaurant, a Japanese/

Chinese restaurant, a games room, and a souvenir shop. Soon five such “leisure centres” were established in Kobe city. The largest among them was set up in the Nishi Nissan-kan Building, where 260 comfort women were employed. Small-scale facilities were also set up in Nishinomiya, Takarazuka, and Himeji as soon as the police authorities found out that occupation troops were due in these cities as well. In total, 1,182 comfort women were mobilized in Hy
d
go prefecture by the end of September. According to an official account of the Hy
d
go prefectural police office, “all comfort stations were doing a roaring business.”12

Even in Hiroshima prefecture, where the prefectural capital, Hiroshima city, was completely destroyed by an atomic bomb, the police force made a great effort to find and recruit as many women as possible. However, probably due to post-nuclear chaos, the Hiroshima prefectural police office was a month later than other prefectures in dealing with the matter. On September 20, the police called a meeting of representatives of businessmen from all over the prefecture and asked them to set up comfort stations, promising money and materials. These representatives were also informed that the recruitment of comfort women would be carried out by the police. The initial funding was provided by the prefectural government. With this financial assistance several factories and factory-workers’

dormitories in Hiro, Funakoshi, Yoshiura, and Itsukushima were converted to comfort stations.13 These towns, all some distance from Hiroshima city, had escaped the A-bomb attack.

From September 24, many police officers were mobilized to locate both licensed and unlicensed prostitutes within Hiroshima prefecture and call on them to cooperate. As most of these women were extremely reluctant to work for foreigners, the police had to lure them by guaranteeing – free of charge – sufficient daily food provisions, such as rice, beef, sugar, and cooking oil. This was an extraordinarily attractive offer at a time when the entire population of Japan was suffering from acute food shortages, and malnutrition and starvation were widespread. By the end of September, about 500 women had been recruited and sent into newly established comfort stations. These comfort stations were opened on October 7, the day that the first contingent of the US

occupation troops arrived in Hiroshima. According to the official account, “as expected, as soon as they were opened, all comfort stations were crowded with clients” and soon “tickets were issued to the soldiers in order to control their
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visits.” By the end of November, new comfort stations had been set up in Fukuchiyama,
i
take, Kure, and Edajima as well. By this stage the total number of comfort women had increased to 725.14

As it was almost certain that two major ports, Yokosuka and Yokohama, were to be the landing places for the Allied occupation troops, the Kanagawa prefectural police division started organizing facilities immediately on receipt of the government instructions. Yokosuka city had not suffered war damage as badly as some and, being one of the main naval ports, had had a relatively large number of brothels serving the members of the Imperial Naval Force throughout the war. Therefore, it was relatively easy for the police there to organize comfort stations. On August 18, only a few hours after he had received the instruction from the Ministry of Home Affairs, the chief of Yokosuka Police, Yamamoto Yoshiji visited prostitutes in the red-light district of the city and urged them to “contribute to building peace in Japan by softening the American soldiers’ wild feeling.” A large naval shipyard workers’ dormitory with 208 rooms was converted to a comfort station and named Yasu-ura House. About 400 prostitutes were mobilized for Yasu-ura House and a few other facilities.15

In Yokohama, on the other hand, the police had difficulty finding enough women. Most prostitutes had left the city due to heavy bombing. The police issued a “free transport pass for public duty” to labor suppliers who travelled to country areas to recruit the women. Police cars were used to transport bedding, blankets, towels, sanitary goods and the like to a newly established comfort station. By the end of August, the police had managed to recruit about 100

women and placed them in a comfort station called Goraku-s
d
(Mutual Pleasure House), which had been an old apartment-house. On August 30, only a day after the arrival of the US occupation troops in Yokohama, a few thousand GIs had already visited Goraku-so. However, this comfort station was closed one week later after GIs had fought over women and the police had been unable to control them.16 The official police account suggests a possible link between a lack of comfort women and a higher rate of crimes committed by GIs in Yokohama compared with that in Yokosuka in the early stage of occupation.17 However, by the end of 1945, nine comfort stations with 355 comfort women were operating – two of them guarded by the military police 24 hours a day.18

In almost every prefecture throughout Japan the police played a crucial role in setting up comfort stations and recruiting comfort women to serve the occupation troops. It should be noted that the police were actually breaking the law by introducing unlicensed and illicit prostitutes into the sex industry and by allow-ing the establishment of comfort stations, which were really special military “brothels” operating without the owners being licensed. Some senior police officers were clearly aware of the fact that their conduct was against the law, made worse by the fact that the instruction had originated from the Police and Security Department of the Ministry of Home Affairs. For example, the above-mentioned Superintendent Ikeda Hirohiko, who converted the single policemen’s dormitory into a comfort station in Tsuchiura, looked back on those days by saying that:

138

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Plate 6.1
A large number of US sailors gathering in front of a comfort station, Yasu-ura House, in Yokosuka. Date unknown.

Source
: Yokosuka City Council Although it was a sort of overstepping the bounds of the Police Act, I thought that, even if I had requested further instructions from Headquarters, I would not have got anything at all. Therefore I made up my mind to deal with the matter by myself, on my own responsibility, without making any queries to my superiors. I was prepared to stand between the occupation forces and the Japanese people for general good in maintaining peace and order, and, if necessary, to bear any reprimand.19

Moreover, the official historical account by the police gives the false impression that those recruited as comfort women for the occupation troops were all professional prostitutes, whether licensed or unlicensed. In reality, some non-professional women, notably high-school students who had been put to work in munitions factories towards the end of the war as members of the Women’s Volunteer Corps, were recruited. It seems that some
Yakuza
( Japanese mafia) groups, who were closely linked with extreme right-wing, fascist organizations controlled by prominent political fixers such as Kodama Yoshio and Sasagawa Ry
d
ichi, were closely involved in “recruiting” from the Women’s Volunteer Corps.

For example, although the war had ended, about 10 high-school students were still staying at a dormitory of one of the arsenals in Kawasaki city in