be-con★booth

Hiroo Onoda
小野田寛郎自然塾理事長　
Jan. 2005


Sixty years after the war, as the number of survivors who fought in the Great Asia War is decreasing, I felt compelled to leave my testimony to clarify that Comfort Women were completely commercial business.

For the troops which are stationed outside the country, the most disturbing problems for maintaining safety and its peace keeping operations were “Rape”, “Looting” and “Arson” by its soldiers.
It’s well known that every country at that time was taking certain measures accordingly to prevent these incidents happening. During the Great Asia War, there were certainly “comfort women” on the battlefield. Since the licensed brothels were legal at that time, it was quite natural to see them.

Even if you are not a military soldier who went out to the battle field, I believe everyone knows the word "nurse attached to the Army" in general as a common sense. However, no one ever heard of, or used a word “comfort women attached to the Army”. The term is newly created after the war to abuse Japan for certain purposes.

It’s a little dirty word, but we certainly had used a word like, “Tsunko-pi”, “Chosen-pi”. As these things are still considered as private things even by now, there aren’t many who publicly make statements. If you say it in detail, you would be teased like “Hey, you know it very well!”

Then, people may ask why I can. Fortunately, I was in a position where I can observe it closely from outside. So, I don’t need to hesitate and I can testify publicly in order to correct the misunderstandings of the publicly dispersed narratives.


◆Site visit to Comfort Station at Hankou

In the spring of 17 years old, as an employee of a trading company, I moved to the Hankou (now Wuhan) Province which is located at the middle of the Yangtze River in China, when it had passed only five months since the Japanese army occupied it. I decided to live in a town, where literally the “smell of smoke of the guns” still remained, so to speak.

At that time, Hankou City had five foreign concessions belonging to the United Kingdom (115 acres, est. 1862), France (60 acres,est. 1886), Russia (60 acres, est. 1886), Germany (100 acres, est. 1895) and Japan (32 acres, est. 1898) and three other distinctive districts for Chinese, Chinese and Japanese, and refugees.

The Chinese - Japanese district was the area where Chinese and Japanese lived together. And Chinese who lived in this district were, as well as the Chinese who lived in the Chinese district, supposed to have an ID card to prove they are certified to live. Other people who don’t have an ID lived in the refugee area for security reasons.

Japanese soldiers were prohibited from going into the refugees’ district. We, Japanese civilians, were allowed to enter it, after we submit the application paper for the permission. That area was so dangerous.

I often walked a lot other than the refugee district because my job was a trader. One day, a soldier in a dirty military uniform asked me on the street, "Do you know where the comfort station is?". I couldn’t understand what he was talking about immediately and got confused for a moment.

Then, I remembered the place with the sign of “Hankou Special Comfort Station” in black ink on the wall, where the sentry man and the soldier who wears armband as “Military Police” were standing in front of it. So, I told him the way to get there.

It was located in Chinese - Japanese district along with the movie theater. Guessing from his dusted military uniform, it’s no doubt the soldier must had come back from the operations. This is because the soldiers guarding the city would not go out with such a dusted dirty military uniform.

I thought “Well, ‘Special Comfort Station’? Indeed, soldiers who have just returned from the operation would need comfort. Probably, he might be short for his pocket money. So, they will serve free rice cake, free steamed sweet bun, free Udon noodle, or something like that for him there” . That was my hasty judgments.

I had an acquaintance who run a trading company which imports tatami mats in addition to daily necessities. He delivered them to Comfort Station, as well as the condom. So he could go into the facility easily. When this acquaintance asked me if I want to go with him, I thought it’s lucky because civilians were not allowed to go into the facilities. So, I followed him and went to the facility.

We first finished our job with talking to the military police about the collection of the money. Since it was a dusk, a lot of ‘Ocha-piki woman”; (professional woman who are waiting for a customer) came out and tried to join the chats we had with the house owner. But the owner rejected them to join and told them to go away.

There were women from mainland, peninsula and Chinese. (Now a word “Chosen(Korean) people” were deemed as discriminatory and rarely used. But at a time the peninsula was a part of Japan, if we said ‘Japanese’ or ‘Chosen’, we were fiercely accused by those Koreans. They claimed that we were the same “Japanese”.

The women came around us and started flattering on us enthusiastically for their business, because they knew Military Police officer wouldn’t come into the individual room unless they find it necessary,

The fees varied from low, middle and high, based on where they came from. Available time for general soldiers to use facility were limited from sun rise till sunset because the curfew was by the time of sunset. The petty officers have latter curfew time and an officer could use the facility at night. The price is getting higher as your class in the army is getting higher. So, women could, of course, earn more money when they deal with the officers with the same amount of time.

Women from peninsula would say ‘I thought he was Go-chou (Officer) but turned out he was Hei-chou(soldier).” “Make up your mind quickly. And come here quickly. Price can be negotiated on the bed.” It’s not a joke we can laugh at all. I heard these women worked this hard. I also heard one of the comfort women from mainland said “If I work in the mainland, I can’t quit job easily. But if I work here, I could quit sometime around within 6 months or a year”. Among others, there was one very tough woman who proudly said herself that “I took 27 customers in a day.” Surprising.

◆Nowhere existed Sex Slaves

Let me introduce here the story that the owner told me, who became close to me. He/she said “Even though there shouldn’t be big difference in physical strength, whether it’s because the women from mainland seriously provides services with forgetting their businesses, or whether it’s because they can communicate with the soldiers in mother language and feel sympathy with the soldiers, they tend to harm their health. So, we need to let them go back to the mainland, which makes owner less profits. All business should be done by the women from mainland, though.” I thought this is his (her) honest opinion.

The town where I grew up had the Karyu (花柳界: pleasure quarters) quarters, so I often had a chance to see Geisha and Shaku-fu(drink service women) who were called ‘professional women’ back then. And we could distinguish them from ordinal women by their appearance. Same can be said in the Hankou City.

Particularly, Korean women had a very unique way. When they come out, usually in group, I could distinguish them at a glance because they don’t wear the traditional dresses, but they were in unfamiliar two-piece western outfits so the way they wore those attires looked awkward, and also because they had their unique way of walking.

They looked so bright and fun. From that figure, I couldn't find any shadows that may remind me of a word “sexual slaves”, which is severely discussed loud in public nowadays. It is for sure that there was an old saying that ‘Predator loan lenders and owners of brothels can’t die happily.’ Since the Meiji Era, the human trafficking were prohibited and changed its form to loans with advance payment. But it didn’t change for women the fact that they were sold.

As I referred ‘quit job’ as above, it means you would be free after completing the prepayment of the borrowing, but I often heard that there were people who recruited women by terrible fraudulent means in the peninsula .

I feel really sorry for women who were deceived. But at the same time, there is a story of a tough comfort woman who told her own story to the soldiers with her eyes in tears “I was deceived when I looked at the poster of hiring for nurses attached to Army. I was a high school grad.”

And she deceived Army Officer or petty Officer and got extra monies beyond its pricing list. It’s also true there is a pure soldiers who believed her. It was a comedy being made possible because we both could communicate in Japanese under the rule of Japan.

By the way, how much money were paid to those “Comfort Station”? This would be the exact proof that Comfort Women were commercial business. Since my second brother was an accounting officer in the army and worked in the logistic department of the Hankou Commander Office, he told me that there is a statistic like below.

At that time, there were 330,000 soldiers deployed around Hankou area. There happened an occasion to look into every soldier’s money journals. The result was that they paid one third of their salary for foods and beverages, one third for savings and one third for “Comfort Stations”. Saving money was not a happy thing to do for their thin salary. But since their bosses encouraged them to do so, soldiers had to save moneys anyway. When I was a first year soldier, I was stationed in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province for a year and had to save money while I was bearing what I wanted to eat.

Probably it doesn’t mean that each soldier divided his salary in three equal amounts. People say there is three major desires ofhuman being, which is desire to eat, sleep and sex. The research result of those numbers was as if they measured with a precise scale, if we replace a word ‘sleep’ with ‘saving’.

Anyway, the salary of a soldier at that time was around thirteen (13) yen, and given that one third of it equals to approx. four (4) yen, and multiply it with the number of the soldiers(330,000), which makes the total sum of the payment to Comfort Stations equals to one million three hundred and twenty thousand (1,320,000) yen. At that time, the cost to manufacture one Zero fighter plane was about thirty thousand (30,000) yen. So, actually the total amount paid to Comfort Stations every month was equivalent to the cost of manufacturing 44 zero fighter plane.

The average of the first salary of the elite salaried employees at that time was about forty (40) yen. So, it’s no wonder the account department of the Commander Office was surprised by this finding.

The above is the actual situation of “comfort stations” and “comfort women” that I have seen and heard from outside for about three and a half years, as I worked as an employee of a trading company.

I double-checked my memory with the book authored by a then vice commander of the Logistic Corp who served after I left Hankou in the summer of 1942. He was in charged of the supervision for the Comfort Stations and other logistics The book’s title is “Logistics at Hankou”. I found some small variance on the geographical names and locations. But overall I found my statements on the Comfort Women have no substantial differences from the descriptions in his book, rather found more detailed descriptions in there. Therefore, whoever looks at this matter, there would be no space to doubt that the “Comfort Women” were commercial business

If somebody insists that Comfort Women were not a Commercial Business but Sex Slave by Japanese Army, he/she is too ignorant, or is deceived by somebody else. If I speak like Osaka people, it would be like “Are you paid by somebody to say so?”. Anyway, it’s too ridiculous.


◆The real aim of those people who are making fuss

Next, I testify on the wild claims that states Japanese Army was involved. I joined the army at the age of twenty, then immediately assigned to the troop being deployed at Nanchang, Jiangxi Province. After the first year training, I joined the actual operations. Then, I got an officer education program, and then returned to operations again. During this whole year and a month, I never had a permission to go out for once. Then, I immediately joined Military Academy, I had no chance to go out and get through the gate of the Comfort Station.

But during the first year training period, higher rank soldier with longer army experiences could have a permission to go out. There was a private first class soldier who would bring back souvenir every time after he went out. So, I asked him. “Sir, will you go out today?”.

He said with a smile, “Yeah, I saved some money in my pocket. So I’m going out to deposit it at Korean Bank.” Everyone around him knew what it meant, so they just grinned.

There was a division headquarters in Nanchang. There were women from Mainland, Koreans and Chinese at the Comfort Station there. And I guess soldiers played with them based on how much they have in their pocket. I joined Officer Training Education at a regiment headquarter being deployed at rural area, which located 30km away from Nanchang Division Headquarters.

A Comfort Station was opened for its business there at a corner of the defense base surrounded by barbed wire. At the end of the education program, the candidate officer trainees were assigned as guardians of the base. Of course, its work time is 24 hours.

I was assigned to guard buildings and didn’t need to stand as a sentry. I often went out for security patrol accompanied by some sentries. Within my assigned patrol area, there was a comfort station. The sentries at the front line are always prepared for a battle. The same is true even for the soldiers assigned to the night time security guard in their barracks. Wearing helmet with loaded guns in hand, which is of course being bayoneted at night.

With this fully equipped figure, we would patrol not only the surrounding of the Comfort Women Station but also patrol inside the building, and receive and check the report from the owner of the station, which shows the number of the current users. That’s because we had to be prepared for raids by guerrilla soldiers and also to maintain the military discipline.

No need to think about it. The soldiers playing there were just more than in unarmed figure, but in more vulnerable and unprepared shape. There is no doubt that the troop has a responsibility to protect those soldiers.

There was also a problem of preventing sexually transmitted diseases. There should be no doctor or hospital in such countryside. The only way to prevent sexually transmitted diseases is to have a military doctor or medic working on the inspection.

The owner of the comfort station was Chinese and the women were also Chinese, who were called Shoug-gi (娼妓:professional prostitute) in general in Japan at a time licensed prostitution system was legal.
They also needed food and other daily necessities. Since it’s a large number of people, they needed to secure certain transportation methods. Because it was a remote place, there was no way other than relying on army troops. This would be the same when troops move as well.

I talked with the owner through stand-chatting and I could knew what they were doing to some degree, because the owner could understand my Hubei dialect in Chinese. Even now, I still recall my awkward figure when I patrolled a hallway at Comfort Station with rooms on both sides.

This ridiculous scene won’t be even in the comic book now. But back then, this scene were actually happened. I don't think this scene wasn’t just for my unit.

Now, it was already far over 60 years ago. Time has changed and there also should be a difference between war time and peace time. Therefore, the perception on the Comfort Women could have been changed. Nonetheless, taking advantage of the evidence being incomplete by now, what is the purpose of those people who start making claims right now?

The only thing I can say is just one. Because it’s difficult to prepare complete evidences now, they think they could get something if they continuously claims in loud.

Let me make final statement here as a person who fought at the actual front line and exposed to countless enemy bullets in the battlefield.

This is for sure. Who could protect the troops at the battlefield? Everything that are surrounding you is enemy. And also we cannot negligent the hostile residents. Thus we have to be vigilant all the time. If you could say there were something that were stronger than you and you could rely on them, then story would be different.

But the truth is there weren’t such things. Therewere no ways to protect you other than protect by yourself.

The Army was not involved in the Comfort Women business. All Army had done were to protect our lives. There were no further actions being taken beyond that.

As was said that it’s the function of “conservation of the species” under the rule of “An unusually fruitful fruit tree is a sign of withering”, it‘s said that soldiers who don’t know if they could survive tomorrow in the battlefield are subject to this "rule of nature".

Is it possible to ask them to imitate a saint or son who opened the enlightenment of Zen Buddhism?

The reality is proved by the fact that soldiers took one third out of their small salaries to go to the "comfort station". They were not spending the extra spare money that they couldn’t spend enough.

The honorable soldiers, who were surrounded by many people waving national flags when they left their home town, were also a young man at the same time. On the other hand, it was a fact that there was a society in which unfortunate and economically poor women had to work this hard way to secure means of living. Does a seller exist because a buyer exist, or does a buyer exist because a seller exit?
Putting aside these questions, as long as people exist on the planet, nobody could stop this type of businesses. Basically the desire exit based on the necessity for descendants of human to prosper.

“Comfort Women attached to Army” never existed. It was simple that there were dealers who run very profitable business by managing the women who sold their services at a battle field, maneuvering the weak point of Japanese soldiers. If these kind of arguments continue, I have to say the victims were the Japanese army and soldiers who had to pay expensive fees for the services.