Annotation source: Seoul Metropolitan Archive
Annotation and image link: https://archives.seoul.go.kr/item/10
ANNOTATION
Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was a U.S. wartime intelligence agency created during WWII, which later became the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The U.S. psychological warfare agencies, including OSS, seems to have considered the “comfort women” issue useful for their operations. There were two ways the “comfort women” could be useful in psychological warfare against Japan. First, it provided an element of conflict within the Japanese military. The fact that the Japanese military tried to use “comfort women” to boost the morale of soldiers means that the usage of, and access to, the comfort stations were potentially a source for internal conflicts. Second, the “comfort women” system could provoke outrage among the local population. Informing the local residents that a large number of women were forcibly taken and exploited for the “comfort” of the Japanese army could trigger anti-Japanese sentiment. In other words, the comfort station system could be a useful tool for psychological warfare that could generate a rift within the armed forces of the Japanese empire and externally in the regions it occupied.
OSS, based in Kunming at the time, carried out interrogations of POWs in order to gather information for psychological warfare. This memorandum includes information from Korean POWs interned in the camp in Kunming. It says that 24 out of 25 Korean POWs were female and states that all of them had become “‘comfort girls,’ apparently under compulsion and misrepresentation.” Itt reports, 15 of them “were recruited through advertisements in Korean newspapers offering employment for girls in Japanese factories in Singapore.” The report also states that “the contingent with which they were sent southward included at least 300 girls who were similarly misled.”
Young-shim Park (spelled as Pak Yông-sim on p.2), whose name is found in the list of Korean POWs, testified at the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery convened in Tokyo in December 2000 that it was indeed herself shown in the well-known photograph of the pregnant “comfort woman,” taken in Songshan, China[see US-32]. The name of another survivor, Kyung-ae Yoon (spelled as Yun Kyông-I on p. 2), is found in this document. Yoon was alive in North Korea as of 2003 and testified that she was also a “comfort woman” in Songshan. In total, 24 “comfort women,” including Park and Yoon, had been taken to Songshan, China, a strategic point near the border between China and Burma (today’s Myanmar). In June 1944, the U.S.-China Allied Forces started attacks on Songshan and captured the area on September 7 of the same year. In the process, the Japanese troops were annihilated and 14 “comfort women” were killed by bombing. Only 10 women survived, either by escaping from the caves that the Japanese troops used as strongholds, or by being captured on site by the Allied Forces. Park was one of the women who escaped from the Japanese military base and was found by Chinese troops. Those women, including Park, were interned in the POW camp in Kunming for about seven months and were sent to Korea via Chongqing, China.
Contributors
[Organization] Seoul National University, Chin-sung Chung Research Team, 2015~
[Organization] Seoul National University, Chin-sung Chung Research Team, 2015~
[Organization] City of Seoul, Women and Family Policy Affairs Office 2011~
[Organization] National Archives and Records Administration 1934~
#OSS #Songshan #Kunming #China #Burma #Young-shim_Park #Pak_Yông-sim #Kyung-ae_Yoon
Download file: https://international.ucla.edu/media/files/US-23-OSS-Attached-memorandum---Korean-and-Japanese-prisoners-of-war-in-Kunming-rm-sxq.pdf
LESSON PLAN
Note to teachers:
1. The discussion questions below are designed based on the original document, not the annotation. Teachers are recommended to use the primary document in teaching, instead of the annotation. However, the annotation provides useful background information for teachers when they prepare for the lesson.
2. The scaffolded questions below are based on "2. The 25 Koreans" on the first page.
Explain the following words to your students before asking them to read the document:
- Kunming: the capital city of Yunnan Province, China
- interrogate: ask questions of (someone, specially a suspect or a prisoner) closely, aggressively, or formally
- prostitute: a person, in particular a woman, who engages in sexual activity for payment. It refers to the "comfort women" in the document.
- PWS: a short form of Prisoners of War
Direct students to read "2. The 25 Koreans" on the first page. The document doesn't show who created the document, so it is helpful if the teacher provides students with the information: The U.S. Office of Strategic Services (OSS) produced the report. Created during World War II, OSS later became the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). After reading, discuss the following questions:
1. What's the title of the document?
2. What does the big red letters on top of the document say? What does that tell you?
3. What are the physical characteristics of this document?
a. Is it handwritten or typed?
b. Are there any marks? If so, what are they?
c. Any other physical features do you notice?
d. Does any of these physical characteristics interest you?
4. When was the message created?
5. What was the historical context in East Asia during the time?
6. Were these Koreans captured or surrendered? What does it tell you?
7. Why were the Koreans wholeheartedly supply information to the Allies?
8. Among the 25 Koreans, how many of them were "comfort women?"
9. How were they recruited?
10. How do you comment on the Japanese military's recruiting strategy?
11. The Japanese government claims that "comfort women" were not coerced, paid prostitutes under contract. Do you think this claim is defendable? Why or why not? What does it tell you about the living condition of "comfort women?"
12. What questions do you have for this document?
13. Where do you think you can find the answers?
* This lesson plan was designed by Jing Williams, Associate Professor of Social Studies Education at University of South Dakota.