Annotation source: Seoul Metropolitan Archive
Annotation and image link: https://archives.seoul.go.kr/item/134
ANNOTATION
This is a scene depicting a Chinese-American intelligence officer Captain Wan Loy Chan and other officers with “comfort women” who were captured and became prisoners of war. The officers were in charge of the POWs in Myitkyina, Burma. This was photographed on August 14, 1944 by Frank W. Shearer, a member of the Army’s 164th Signal Corps A Detachment (111-SC 262580/CBI-44-21635).
Japan initiated the war with Allied Forces in 1941 with a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, then began to take over Burma (now Myanmar), as well as expanded into Southeast Asian colonies of the Allied Forces such as Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. In May 1942, Myitkyina, a major city in northern Burma, was captured by Japan, putting the entire country under Japanese occupation.
Burma was a strategically important area for both the Japanese and Allied Forces. The only supply route through which the Allied Forces could support China’s Chiang Kai-shek was located here (Rangoon, Burma; Kunming, China). With Japan occupying the area starting in 1942, more than 100,000 Japanese troops entered Burma, and comfort stations were established in almost all major cities. By way of example, the total number of comfort stations that appear in the diary of a former comfort station manager comes to 27, including 8 in Rangoon, 1 in Mouulmain, 5 in Pegu, 6 in Fromm, and 3 in Aqap in Burma. It is estimated that many of the “comfort women” in these stations were Koreans. When the Allied Forces began to attack Burma in 1944, not only Japanese soldiers but also Korean “comfort women” were captured as prisoners.
The women in the photo are Korean “comfort women” captured by the Allied Forces in Myitkyina, Burma in August 1944. Captain Chan wanted to obtain enemy military information from these women, but most of them did not speak Japanese fluently, so he did not get much help from them. He detailed several episodes of the interrogation process in his memoir, Burma: Untold Story (1986). The photo was taken at a temporary camp installed at the airfield west of Myitkyina where these women stayed. The U.S soldiers on the left in the photo are, from the front, Lieutenant Wan Loy Chan, Sergeant Robert Honda, Sergeant Grant Hirabayashiand Sergeant Howard Furumoto. The 20 women sitting on the right are Korean “comfort women”; there are other pictures of them. They were captured on August 10, stayed here for five days, and sent to Redo on August 15.
The results of the interrogation of these women were written in two reports. One is〈Japanese Prisoners Interrogation Report No. 49〉(US-11), produced by the U.S Office of War and Information Services (OWI), and the other is 〈Psychological Warfare Bulletin No. 2〉 by the British Southeast Asian Translation Interrogation Center (SEATIC) (US-21). According to the two reports, these women were brought to comfort stations in Burma in 1942 through fraud and coercion (e.g., on the basis of “false misrepresentations”) by contractors who were commissioned by the Japanese military. They were detained at the Kyoyai comfort station (also known as the Maruyama comfort station), which was among three comfort stations in Myitkyina.
Contributors
[Organization] City of Seoul, Women and Family Policy Affairs Office 2011~
[Organization] National Archives and Records Administration 1934~
[Organization] Seoul National University, Chin-sung Chung Research Team, 2015~
[Organization] Seoul National University, Chin-sung Chung Research Team, 2015~
#photo #interrogation #Myitkyina #Burma #Myanmar #Kyoyai #Maruyama
Download file: https://international.ucla.edu/media/files/US-25-Photo-Korean-“comfort-women”-captured-by-the-U.S-Troops-in-Burma-Myitkyina-1-vq-iyf.pdf