Hank Nelson: The massive Japanese state effort to transport, organize, supervise, and supply some 2,000 women in sexual service in New Guinea
[Hank Nelson is emeritus professor in the Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies of Australian National University, and author of many studies in Australian and Pacific history, particularly in relation to the Second World War in Australia and the Pacific. This paper was first presented at a Division of Pacific and Asian History seminar at the Australian National University, Canberra on 8 May 2007. It has been submitted for publication to the Journal of Pacific History.]
From late 1942 Australians knew that the Japanese had shipped women to Rabaul where they worked in brothels catering for Japanese troops. Japanese captured on the Kokoda Track and elsewhere described the brothels, and New Guineans who had been in Rabaul talked about them. Australian military and civilian prisoners saw the brothels, and a few of those Australians observed them over a long period. Japanese who served in Rabaul have left reminiscences about the brothels and one Korean woman has testified that she worked in Rabaul. As a result, there is scattered material on perhaps 3000 comfort women in an Australian Territory, but when Australian reporters and commentators need to give the comfort women an Australian relevance, these women are never mentioned. Their experiences are not used to provide evidence on the recurring debates about whether the comfort women were coerced or free and whether they were recruited, shipped and employed by private contractors rather than the Japanese military or government.
As Prime Ministers John Howard and Abe Shinzo met in March 2007 to sign a security pact, questions about Japan’s role in World War II, its national memory of that war, and its willingness to admit to, and apologise for, atrocities all resurfaced.[1] Clint Eastwood’s two films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, a Japanese documentary aiming to show that the rape of Nanking was enemy propaganda, questions about official visits to the Yasukuni shrine which presents its own perspective on war and houses the spirits of convicted war criminals; the (predictable) failure of the teams of Japanese and Chinese scholars to reconcile two national histories; and the problem of the Japanese recognising its own victims of war while it is yet to accept its responsibility for making others victims have sharpened concern about how the Japanese present their own history.[2] And renewed interest by the American congress in the comfort women and the suggestion by Abe that the women were not compelled to work as prostitutes and the military did not have direct responsibility for the women ensured that the harrowing memories of the comfort women were again news.[3] To establish relevance, the Australian media turned to Jan Ruff-O’Herne who grew up in the Dutch East Indies and in the postwar married a British serviceman, Tom Ruff. In 1960, the Ruff-O’Herne family migrated to Australia. The first European woman to break her silence, Jan Ruff-O’Herne first told her daughters in 1992 and then gave testimony in Tokyo about suffering brutal serial rape in the House of the Seven Seas in Java. [4] But in all the Australian reports on comfort women there was no mention that ‘Consolation Units’ had operated for two years in Rabaul – in what had been the capital of the Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea. Whether by accident or design, Australians have chosen not to remember the brothels in an Australian territory and not to use evidence from Rabaul to contribute to debates about the comfort women.
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Read entire article at Japan Focus
From late 1942 Australians knew that the Japanese had shipped women to Rabaul where they worked in brothels catering for Japanese troops. Japanese captured on the Kokoda Track and elsewhere described the brothels, and New Guineans who had been in Rabaul talked about them. Australian military and civilian prisoners saw the brothels, and a few of those Australians observed them over a long period. Japanese who served in Rabaul have left reminiscences about the brothels and one Korean woman has testified that she worked in Rabaul. As a result, there is scattered material on perhaps 3000 comfort women in an Australian Territory, but when Australian reporters and commentators need to give the comfort women an Australian relevance, these women are never mentioned. Their experiences are not used to provide evidence on the recurring debates about whether the comfort women were coerced or free and whether they were recruited, shipped and employed by private contractors rather than the Japanese military or government.
As Prime Ministers John Howard and Abe Shinzo met in March 2007 to sign a security pact, questions about Japan’s role in World War II, its national memory of that war, and its willingness to admit to, and apologise for, atrocities all resurfaced.[1] Clint Eastwood’s two films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima, a Japanese documentary aiming to show that the rape of Nanking was enemy propaganda, questions about official visits to the Yasukuni shrine which presents its own perspective on war and houses the spirits of convicted war criminals; the (predictable) failure of the teams of Japanese and Chinese scholars to reconcile two national histories; and the problem of the Japanese recognising its own victims of war while it is yet to accept its responsibility for making others victims have sharpened concern about how the Japanese present their own history.[2] And renewed interest by the American congress in the comfort women and the suggestion by Abe that the women were not compelled to work as prostitutes and the military did not have direct responsibility for the women ensured that the harrowing memories of the comfort women were again news.[3] To establish relevance, the Australian media turned to Jan Ruff-O’Herne who grew up in the Dutch East Indies and in the postwar married a British serviceman, Tom Ruff. In 1960, the Ruff-O’Herne family migrated to Australia. The first European woman to break her silence, Jan Ruff-O’Herne first told her daughters in 1992 and then gave testimony in Tokyo about suffering brutal serial rape in the House of the Seven Seas in Java. [4] But in all the Australian reports on comfort women there was no mention that ‘Consolation Units’ had operated for two years in Rabaul – in what had been the capital of the Australian Mandated Territory of New Guinea. Whether by accident or design, Australians have chosen not to remember the brothels in an Australian territory and not to use evidence from Rabaul to contribute to debates about the comfort women.
[Click on the SOURCE link above to read the full article.]