Annotation source: Seoul Metropolitan Archive Annotation and image link: https://archives.seoul.go.kr/item/116 and https://catalog.archives.gov/id/148727292 Image also available at U.S. National Archives: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/148727292 Annotation This is a photograph of four “comfort women” captured by the Chinese forces in Songshan, Yunnan Province, China. It was taken on or around September 3, 1944 by Private Charles H. Hatfield, a member of the U.S. Army's 164thSignal Photo Corps. This photo became widely known when a North Korean “comfort woman” Young-shim Park (alt: Yeong-shim Park), who testified at the 2000 Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery in Tokyo, said that she is indeed the pregnant woman on the far right of the photo. Songshan was such an important strategic point, it being where the Allied Forces collided with the Japanese forces, that it was dubbed “Gibraltar on Burma Road.” Allied Forces had to cross Songshan and Salween River (Lugang) in order to support the Nationalist Army of Chiang Kai-shek in Chongqing. In 1942, Japanese troops occupied Songshan, deployed a garrison (the Japanese army called it the Ramo garrison), built a “comfort station,” and brought 24 women, including Young-shim Park, there. In June 1944, Y forces (the combined forces of the U.S. and China) launched an attack on Songshan in Yunnan Province, a border between China and Burma, and Japanese-occupied Tengchong in order to retake Burma Road, and captured Songshan on September 7 of the same year. In the process, the Japanese troops were annihilated, and 14 “comfort women” were also killed by shelling. Only 10 women who escaped the caves used as strongholds by the Japanese army or captured by the Allied Forces at the scene survived. Young-shim Park was one of a group of women found by the Chinese army after escaping the stronghold. This is a photograph of four of the women and the Chinese soldiers. Private Hatfield, who took the photo, mistakenly believed and made a note of the women as “Jap Girls” on the back of the photo because they were with the Japanese troops. The report in “Round Up,” a U.S. military newspaper for the China-Burma-India Theaters (CBI), the operation diary of Y forces (U.S. –China coalition) that occupied Songshan and Tengchong, the interrogation reports of POWs, and the surviving video footage of Korean “comfort women”[see JS-33], and, most of all, the testimony of the survivor Young-shim Park, collectively indicate that at least some of these women were Korean “comfort women.” The four women photographed, including Young-shim Park, were held in Kunming camp for about 7 months along with the other women who had survived in Songshan and Tengchong areas, and they returned to Korea through Chongqing with the help of the Allied Forces. Contributors [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~ [Organization] City of Seoul, Women and Family Policy Affairs Office 2011~ #photo #Songshan #Tengchong #China #Hatfield #Young-shim_Park #Yeong-shim_Park #Kunming Download file: https://international.ucla.edu/media/files/US-32-Photo-“comfort-women”-in-Songshan,-China-s0-ykc.pdf