Author: Byeongju Hwang, a Research Officer, National Institute of Korean History Original annotation: http://www.kyeol.kr/node/196 Image link: https://archives.seoul.go.kr/item/82 Annotation This is an interrogation report produced by the Psychological warfare division, Office of War Information (OWI). It is one of two important documents produced by the Allied Forces regarding the “comfort women” issue, along with the ATIS no. 120 report[US-2].This report summarizes the interrogations of 20 former Korean “comfort women” who were captured as POWs in Myitkyina area, northern Burma (today’s Myanmar). It is the only case where as many as 20 “comfort women” were captured at once and recorded in an interrogation report. The report no. 49 consists of the following sections: Preface, Recruiting, Personality, Living and working conditions, Price system, Schedules, Pay and living conditions, reactions toward the Japanese troops, reactions of Japanese soldiers, Reactions to Japanese soldiers, Soldiers’ reactions, Reaction to the military situation, Retreat and capture, Propaganda, and Requests. Attached as an appendix is the list of Korean names of the 20 “comfort women” and names of the couple that operated the comfort station. The 7 pages in total include the body text of 6 pages and 1-page appendix. This document provides a lot of information regarding comfort station management and the living conditions of “comfort women.” It introduces specific information such as business hours, rate system, and income of “comfort women.” However, this document also shows an unusual instance of the military reporter injecting subjective judgment about the lives and status of the “comfort women.” For example, the author writes that the “comfort women” were not pretty from Japanese and Caucasian standards and that the women were ‘childish and selfish.’ He writes that “comfort women” lived a relatively abundant life and ‘near-luxury,’ but this was when compared to other areas of Burma. Today, these outlier descriptions are often relied upon by history deniers and Japan’s extreme right-wing forces in order to attack the historical basis that “comfort women” were coerced. In particular, skeptics tend to selectively focus on the line in the preface that a ‘comfort girl’ is nothing more than a prostitute or ‘camp follower’” while excluding or ignoring the section under “Recruitment,” which states that the women were recruited on the basis of “false representations.” In order to fully understand report no. 49, an analysis of the interrogator and the context is useful. This report is not a direct transcript of the statements and testimonies of the 20 Korean “comfort women,” but instead a separately produced report based on the author’s interpretation of the interrogation reports of the 20 women. The author of this report is Alex Yorichi. Yorichi was a second generation Japanese immigrant called Nisei. While their families and fellow Japanese Americans were interned in the US as enemy subjects, thousands of Nisei joined the US military and dedicated themselves to their country of citizenship. This war created a situation where Nisei soldiers were fighting against Japan, a country associated with their identity and the discrimination they faced back home in America. This report should be read with an understanding of this complex situation and its potential impact on the Nisei interrogators. Another important point is that the report does not reflect firsthand voices of the Korean “comfort women,” in part due to language barriers and translation complications. Yorichi did not speak Korean, and it is highly probable that the Japanese language skills of the “comfort women” were very poor, since it was not their native language. The interrogations of the women were likely conducted through the former comfort station owners, whom the women called “mama-san” and “papa-san” (mama and papa). The comfort station owners were a husband and wife couple, Kitamura, and it seems that they played the role of an interpreter and a spokesperson for the “comfort women.” If that was the case, it is highly possible that what they relayed during the interrogation was favorable to themselves. The problem of subjective narration in this report becomes clearer when compared to SEATIC bulletin no. 2 [US-20]. In fact, the report on the 20 Korean “comfort women” at Myitkyina is found in various records, as it was an important case that showed the reality of the “comfort station” system for the Japanese military. Unlike the report produced by Yorichi, however, SEATIC bulletin no. 2 is mostly a dry description of facts. #interrogation #Alex_Yorichi #Nisei #Kitamura #recruitment #management Download file: https://international.ucla.edu/media/files/US-11-Japanese-Prisoner-of-War-Interrogation-Report-No.-49-Korean-Comfort-Women-cb-eyn.pdf