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Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women
by Archie Miyamoto (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars (60)
The Japanese military is accused of abducting 200,000 women, mostly from Korea, and using them as sex slaves. WWII military records provide a completely different perspective. This is a compilation of primary source documents, mostly WWII military records of U.S., Allied, Dutch, Australian and Japanese reports and documents related to comfort women. It also includes and analysis of a diary of a Korean comfort station operator. It provides a true description of the comfort women system based on primary source documents.
Archie Miyamoto is a retired U.S. Army infantry officer who spent 29 years on active duty. He served two combat tours in the Korean war and two tours in Vietnam. On his first tour in Vietnam, he commanded a helicopter gunship platoon and was wounded twice. On his second, he served as a U.S. liaison officer to the armored cavalry regiment of the Korean Tiger Division. He served two tours as a military advisor to the Chinese military on Taiwan. On his first tour he introduced helicopters into the Chinese Army, acquiring fifty helicopters from U.S. Army excess inventory. On his second tour in Taiwan, he was the joint operations training advisor to their Ministry of Defense. On his last overseas tour, he served as the joint defense planning coordinator between the armed forces of Japan and the U.S. On his first tour in Japan as lieutenant, he was a platoon leader in the famous 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team. He has also served in Germany. After retirement from the military spent over two years in the Middle East as a project manager for a U.S. firm.
After returning to the U.S., he was asked to join a Japanese corporation in Los Angeles. A few years ago, he retired as its president/chairman, and remained in the capacity of a consultant until last year. He is now completely retired and resides in Los Angeles.
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Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Background Information on the Comfort Women Issue
- Summary of Contents
- U.S./Allied Military Documents
- ATIS (Allied Translator and Interpreter Section) Interrogation Reports
- Office of Strategic Services [OSS – forerunner of CIA] Reports
- Brothels of Japan's Armed Forces in Southeast Asia
- U.S. National Archives Interagency Working Group's Final Report to U.S.
- Congress on War Crimes Records
- Dutch Military Reports
- The Bart von Poelgeest Report
- Comfort Women Dutch War Crimes Cases
- Dutch Interrogation Reports
- Comments on Indonesia
- Australian War Crimes Trials
- Japanese Government/Military Documents
- Japanese Foreign Ministry Documents
- Other Japanese Military Documents
- Other Japanese Military Records
- Korean Original Source Documents
- Concluding Remarks
- List of WWII Reports/Documents
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Moshiur R.
5.0 out of 5 stars A serious book for readers who can handle complexity
Reviewed in the United States on 26 May 2026
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As an someone who has spent years reading about East Asian history, I’ve seen this topic discussed with plenty of certainty and not always enough patience. Archie Miyamoto’s book stands out because it pays close attention to how records were created, translated, interpreted, and later used. That may sound dry, but it is exactly where many historical debates are won or lost.
What I found especially useful is the book’s focus on bureaucracy: military reports, administrative language, occupation-era documents, and the way official categories can change meaning over time. History is not only made in dramatic speeches or moral slogans. Sometimes it is hidden in dull paperwork, and this book understands that.
I also appreciated how it brings the American role into the picture. U.S. readers often treat this as a Korea-Japan dispute, but postwar American records, translations, and interpretations helped shape the wider understanding of the issue too.
The book is dense, but never pointless. It rewards careful reading and pushes back against oversimplified narratives without turning cold or dismissive. It made me think harder about evidence, language, and memory.
For me, that easily earns five stars.
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Hedwig
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a great, non-biased book purely based on facts
Reviewed in Japan on 10 May 2017
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The War Guilt Information Program implemented by GHQ right after the war has initiated all the anti-Japan propaganda we are seeing today.
The communists, socialists, and propagandists in Japan backed by North and South Korea, and possibly by China, made the best of WGIP implemented by US military, and kept Japan from protecting herself from enemies. Japan was unable to implement laws and a military power because of various propaganda fabricated by anti-Japan mobs. Japan still does not have laws to punish spies and anti-Japan activists even today.
As a result, Japan's media, such as influential TV networks and news papers, have been plagued by communist spies and anti-Japan activists in order to brainwash people in Japan and abroad. They have been successful and as a result, spies from North Korea have been freely entering into Japan, and stole sofisticated high-tech information and abducted people. North Korea even has a headquarters of its spy agency in Tokyo, and Japanese Governent cannot do away with it.
As a result, North Korea was able to develop missiles and nuclear bombs on its own, and may have a missile technology that would reach USA with nuclear warhead in a not so distant future.
Thanks to fact based good books like this one, as well as information available now through Internet, people in Japan and West have finally started understanding what is going on, and are no more deceived by fabricated stories created by communists and its allies.
It is quite important that the truth be spread around and people stop believing fake news created by fake media, so Japan could implement laws to prevent spies from entering the country so state-of-the-art technologies would not be leaked to such rogue regime as North Korea.
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Amazon カスタマー
5.0 out of 5 stars A sincere approach demonstrated to the issue by the author.
Reviewed in Japan on 16 January 2020
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The composition of the book is great as it deals with only official records kept by authoritative bodies.
One thing I thought unfortunate is the case pertaining to the Semarang Incident in Java, Chapter D3. Major Keiji Okada, who was the only one to have been shot to death after the trial of 12 defendants was over. He left two notebooks before his death, which shed light on what really happend in Semarang from February to April 1944. An amazing account is included therein. I wish Lt. Col. Miyamoto read what I translated from the notebooks. He might have added a few paragraphs to the book upon reading my translation. It is "unfortunate" for the notebooks not to become available until 2018.
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Zain Siddiqui
5.0 out of 5 stars A surprisingly compelling and well-documented bookv
Reviewed in the United States on 25 February 2026
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This book digs into wartime military records with a level of detail that feels serious and methodical, not sensational. What stood out most to me was the exploration of how narratives form: not just what happened in history, but how governments, media, and activists shape the way those events are remembered. It adds an extra layer that makes you think beyond the surface.
The writing is clear, direct, and surprisingly readable. You don’t need to be an academic to follow it, but there’s enough depth to keep serious readers engaged. Even if you don’t end up agreeing with every conclusion, it certainly is worth reading.
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Consumer Bee
5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Contribution to the Comfort Women Scholarship
Reviewed in the United States on 12 August 2017
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Wow! Thank you, Lt. Col., (Ret.) Archie Miyamoto for your military service to the United States and for your tireless effort locating and compiling scores of primary source documents that contribute to an understanding of the truth behind Japan’s “comfort woman” controversy.
As stated in Mr. Miyamoto’s "Background Information," for decades Japan has been unfairly accused of allowing its military to kidnap and coerce 200,000 Korean and other women to serve as “sex slaves in military-run brothels during World War II. This sensationalist fairy tale has been repeated so many times that a number of lazy journalists and even academics have succumbed to and promoted the lie without doing their own due diligence. I advise any journalist or scholar or general public who comments on the comfort women to first READ THIS BOOK AND GET UP TO SPEED on the issue! Mr. Miyamoto makes clear that his collection of primary sources related to the comfort women issue is not meant to excuse the sanctioning of prostitution [though prostitution was legal in Asia in those days]; the issue is whether the Japanese military abducted 200,000 women, mainly from Korea, for sex slaves, or not!
After reading this outstanding compilation of WWII records, the true picture emerges: The Japanese military did not kidnap women to serve in brothels! The Japanese military makes no secret of the fact that like many armed forces the world over, during WWII Japan pragmatically planned to make available to soldiers in the field access to hygienic and safe brothels in order to reduce the incidents of venereal disease, reduce rape of local women (which would cause unnecessary conflict with locals), and discourage soldiers from fraternizing with enemy women seeking military secrets. But to carry out the plan, the Japanese military invited COMMERCIAL brothels owned by Japanese, Korean, Taiwanese civilians to set up shop in various garrisons, but only after the brothel operator signed a contract to follow certain health and safety procedures (like soldiers must use condoms, women must not be coerced, women can refuse a client, etc.). (Note that Korea and Taiwan were part of the Japanese Empire). Later the military vetted and contracted with some local brothels in forward areas (for example, the Philippines). BUT IT IS RIDICULOUS to think the Japanese military kidnapped sex workers to work in their comfort stations, especially Korean or Taiwanese women, since Korea and Taiwan were both part of the Japanese Empire and their soldiers were fighting loyally alongside Japanese. Why would the Japanese military anger Koreans and Taiwanese by kidnapping their women??? There were plenty of private Japanese, Korean, and Taiwanese and other brothels that were eager to make money for themselves and their sex workers. (And the women who serviced the Japanese Army were paid quite well.) The brothel operators DID THEIR OWN HIRING of sex workers. The Japanese military offered transport to various locations, if necessary.
In Miyamoto's book, the Japanese military documents captured by the Allies after Japan was defeated reveal in great detail the regulations that brothel operators were to follow in exchange for the privilege of being a “camp follower. “The details are quite fascinating. The regulations appear to have been created to ensure the health and safety and fair-treatment of soldiers and the sex workers.
Other documents such as reports from the Dutch and Australians reveal a limited number of incidents of rape and confinement by Japanese soldiers, which was a crime according to Japanese military law. Because those soldiers brought shame to the Japanese army, they were immediately punished by Japanese commanding officers or in post-war tribunals. These incidents should not be confused or equated with the “comfort system” in which the sex workers or “comfort women” were indeed paid prostitutes. No evidence can be found among numerous primary sources to verify the existence of 200,000 comfort women or anything close to that number. One Korean scholar thinks there were closer to 5000 paid Korean comfort women.
I highly recommend Mr. Miyamoto’s book to anyone seeking out truth of the comfort women issue.
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高橋勉
5.0 out of 5 stars 凄い本に感謝
Reviewed in Japan on 18 April 2021
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世界中に広げるべき本
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Joanna D.
5.0 out of 5 stars Trafficking, war crimes and diplomacy
Reviewed in the United States on 14 February 2018
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Archie Miyamoto's book on the "Comfort Women" of World War II takes a factual, unemotional and journalistic look at a very sensitive topic.
The establishment of military brothels is nothing new. To limit rape on the local population of women and keep the peace, military officials have in history, frequently set up official or not-so-official stations staffed with sex workers to service the soldiers. This is an important aspect of occupation in order to reduce resistance and encourage cooperation of the occupied residents. The US military itself has a conflicted history of approving (openly or not) official areas of prostitution for soldiers and then disapproving and banning it, all the while tacitly permitting the situation. It's a finding that assaults on the local women rise if some kind of outlet is not easily accessible.
Feminists will hold that the only moral and acceptable course would be to order soldiers to rein themselves in or face punishment. However, human nature being what it is, rape violence and promiscuous sexual activity, whether encouraged or punished, is one type of collateral damage during war chaos. So camp followers, comfort station and military brothels are historically a tragic but common occurrence in wartime and occupation.
Lately, the issue of the Comfort Women of Korea is getting a lot of attention. Statues are being erected in the United States and elsewhere to memorialize the young women who were lured, or kidnapped and forced into sexual slavery. Do the local officials who approve the statues understand there are deeper issues than simply honoring women who were victimized?
Who trafficked these women? The narrative is that the Japanese kidnapped many thousands of women and forced them into comfort stations but the truth, like all truths, is more complicated. How could a military, bent on conquest, simultaneously kidnap 200,000 women and hide the fact?
Archie Miyamoto uses a great deal of research with official documents to track where the women came from, how they were trafficked and who were responsible for this. The answers are not always palatable to the idea that the Japanese were the only perpetrators. Collaborators from Korea are never part of the official narrative, and Miyamoto's compilation of official military documents makes it hard to simply dismiss his work as an attempt to bleach the Japanese reputation.
Why is this an issue now? There is an international struggle to gain ascendency in rank among China, North and South Korea and Japan. Americans are being dragged in to a complex diplomatic issue without knowing more than the simply-presented story that "The Japanese kidnapped 200,000 women."
But it's much more than about diplomatic one-upmanship, There is an even more important side to this story. This book gives important insight into the current criminal network of trafficking as to who and how it's done. Finding out the historical facts shed light on ways to stop trafficking, which is a worldwide problem. Understanding how so many women ended up as prostitutes in World War II gives important knowledge for today. For that reason, I recommend reading Miyamoto's study.
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Math Simon
1.0 out of 5 stars Author is unverifiable and references are taken our of context
Reviewed in Japan on 20 August 2025
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Author is unverifiable. Also, the supposed author takes references out of context.
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FreeTradeTool
4.0 out of 5 stars A first-of-its-kind compilation of official military documents by the Allied ...
Reviewed in the United States on 11 April 2017
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A first-of-its-kind compilation of official military documents by the Allied Forces on the controversial Japanese Comfort Women system. These reports are by members of the armed forces that were battling the Japanese as savage enemies and had no reason to cover up possible criminal acts in the time of war. All of the military documentation comes from the days during and shortly after the conclusion of World War II, and as such, it is invaluable as an objective source of historical facts. In addition, Japanese military records highlighting the extent of its supervisory role in the Comfort Women system present a very different account relative to the modern master narrative. In fact, taken as a whole, it thoroughly demolishes the narrative as blatantly false. As an example, the author enumerates some of the rules and regulations for comfort stations in Northern China (3d Mountain Artillery Regiment Regulation, dated October 11, 1940): a) comfort station operators - must provide proper ID, submit résumés of all employees, schedule health inspection once every ten days for comfort women, report revenue for the month; b) soldiers – no food or drinks allowed, no act of violence against operator or women, turn over money to and permit (pass) to comfort station.
The author also cites certain reports that have been unearthed a while ago, such as the U.S. Office of War Information, Psychological Warfare Team Interrogation Report No. 49 (Oct. 1, 1944), but there are so many more revealing documents (for instance, “Composite Report on Three Korean Navy Civilians List No. 78, March 25, 1945, Re “Special Questions on Koreans”). In ATIS (Allied Translator Interpreter Section), Research Report No. 120 (Nov. 15, 1945), the title of the report reads “Amenities of the Japanese Armed Forces.” This is how the U.S. military viewed the comfort stations, not “rape centers” in which institutionalized criminal activity took place, and translations of Japanese guidelines include ‘Hostesses will refuse pleasure to those who do not use prophylactic rubbers.’ Definitely a must read for anyone who has heard of Japan’s Comfort Women controversy and seeks some information on it, but the reader will also find out much more, including the impending geopolitical ramifications that affect America in this increasingly dangerous world.
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Shiva
5.0 out of 5 stars 慰安婦とは何か
Reviewed in Japan on 22 October 2019
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慰安婦とは何か 色んな資料を用いて
何が事実なのか 淡々と述べてます
嘘の元を作った朝日とか お仲間の某国
それに迎合した当時の首相 官房長官
いろいろ腹立つ
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Burhan
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that forces you to slow down and actually look
Reviewed in the United States on 1 June 2026
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I finished Archie Miyamoto’s Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women with the rare feeling that I’d been handed something many public arguments desperately need: a packet of documents, laid out with intent, that forces you to slow down and look. Not at slogans. Not at a “side.” At records.
The book is short (about 53 pages in the commonly listed edition), but it is not slight. Miyamoto’s wager is that the comfort women debate has been inflated by moral theater and thinned by document literacy, and that the fastest way to restore seriousness is to put archival material back in the reader’s hands. That approach alone earns goodwill from anyone tired of hearing the same rehearsed claims repeated as if repetition were proof.
What makes the book especially compelling is the breadth of the compilation. As described in a detailed review, Miyamoto draws on materials associated with multiple national archives and wartime record sets: US and Allied documentation, Dutch and Australian sources, and Japanese and Korean-related records, alongside specific items like POW interrogation reports and operational files. The cumulative effect is not “one document that settles everything,” but a cross-checking pressure: multiple bureaucracies, multiple vantage points, and recurring administrative patterns.
There is also a practical intelligence guiding the selection and framing. Miyamoto is presented (again, in that review) as a retired US Army lieutenant colonel with war experience and postings that made him fluent in how militaries actually function: logistics, chain of command, regulations, what is plausible in the fog of war, and what claims collapse under basic operational scrutiny. Whether you agree with every inference he draws, that kind of institutional literacy matters here because so much of the comfort station discourse turns on questions of control, policy, enforcement, and what “military involvement” meant in practice.
I also appreciated the book’s readability. It is designed to be consumed in one sitting, which is not a trivial virtue in an area where many readers either drown in massive scholarly works or end up relying on activist summaries. Miyamoto’s compilation functions like a bridge: it can prepare a reader for deeper scholarship without asking them to start with a 600-page tome and a thousand footnotes. (The same review explicitly positions it as a useful companion to Ikuhiko Hata’s longer academic treatment, precisely because it is document-forward and accessible.)
A fair warning: this book sits inside a live wire of politics and memory, and it does not pretend otherwise. The Japan Forward review praises it for pushing back against emotionally loaded rhetoric and for contesting popular claims about coercion and “sex slavery,” and it frames the book as corrective to propaganda. That tells you something important about how the book is received and how it may be used by readers who already have a preferred narrative. If you come to the subject expecting a neutral synthesis that weighs all schools of interpretation evenly, this will feel like the wrong instrument. It is not a consensus history. It is, instead, a curated evidentiary intervention.
But here is why I still think a five-star rating is defensible, even for a skeptical reader.
First, the method is intellectually honest in a way the culture war around this issue often is not. Miyamoto’s central move is to foreground documentation, not vibes. Even if you ultimately dispute his conclusions, you are forced to argue with records rather than with caricatures of the other side.
Second, the book’s compactness is a feature, not a flaw. It lowers the barrier to entry without dumbing the subject down, which is exactly what an “information war” topic needs: more citizens capable of reading sources, fewer citizens dependent on prepackaged moral scripts.
Third, it is clarifying. It separates three questions that public debate constantly conflates: what the system was, how recruitment operated in specific contexts, and how later political narratives reframe the past. By putting administrative materials in view, the book helps readers see where certainty is warranted, where it isn’t, and what “proof” actually looks like.
Finally, it prompts better reading habits. You start noticing how often modern commentary leaps from a general moral truth (“war brutalizes women”) to a specific historical claim (“therefore the system operated in this exact way everywhere, always”). A document-centered compilation is an antidote to that kind of lazy certainty.
I would recommend Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women the way I recommend a good primary-source reader in any contentious field: as a foundation. Read it alongside a serious academic work, and alongside survivor testimony with careful attention to translation, context, and incentives. The point is not to treat any single book as a moral verdict. The point is to rebuild a conversation that can survive contact with evidence.
Five stars, in other words, not because the topic is comfortable, and not because every reader will agree with Miyamoto’s framing, but because the book does what too few books in this space do: it insists that if we are going to make grave claims, we should be able to point to the paper.
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Amazon カスタマー
5.0 out of 5 stars Nice work!
Reviewed in Japan on 25 April 2017
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当時の資料から客観的に慰安所と慰安婦の実態を明らかにし、根拠なく不当に日本人を貶めようとする一部の国に惑わされないように説く良書。
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Al Johnson
5.0 out of 5 stars Valuable Reference on WW2 History regarding the Comfort Women
Reviewed in the United States on 9 February 2017
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As a historian, investigator and researcher with a military background, I can appreciate Lt. Col (R) Archie Miyamoto's approach to the Comfort Women scandal. As we currently are inundated with "fake news", one can not forget that there is also "fake history" as well.
Most of the other popular books regarding Comfort Women unfortunately stoop to the level of David Irving's denialist rants, using pseudo intellectual methods, Argumentum ad Populum (attempting to build popular support rather than proving the allegation), appeals to emotion, genetic fallacy, and appeals to improper authority.
It is the last one, appeals to improper authority, that this book addresses so well. Throughout the evolution of the Comfort Women narrative, from the early 1990s when they were arguing they were not paid enough, to todays outright fabrication that 200,000 were kidnapped, we can see that rarely if ever do the denialist authors such as Hicks, Dudden, Yoshiaki, etc use documentation, or when they do, it is contextualized to such extremes as to obscure the actual facts.
The author of the Wartime Records, has apparently taken his U.S. Army experience (2 tours in Korea, 2 tours in Vietnam according to the biography, including being the U.S. commander for South Korean soldiers in Vietnam), and published all the documents that are omitted or obscured in many other books, leaving it for the reader to evaluate the facts.
This enables the reader to gather the information directly from U.S., U.K, Dutch, and other investigators at the time of the events. In addition, it directly debunks the denialists speil that there were no documents or that those documents proving the 200,000 kidnapped were destroyed. Quite the contrary as Lt. Col. (Ret) Miyamoto points out, there were many documents, the U.S. particularly investigated it at the time, and it was found that the prostitutes were just that: prostitutes under well paying contracts that were equivalent to contract workers in todays military.
Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women has done an excellent job of placing the known allied records together and highlighting the salient passages that directly address the contraversy. No student or teacher of history or current affairs should be without it. Sadly many reporters have discredited themselves by reporting on the Comfort Women issue without referring to and understanding these source documents.
Considering this issue as a racially and emotionally charged one gradually being promoted in American cities and effecting international relations between South Korea, the United States, and Japan, it is well worth the historians, Asian regional affairs, or just the curious reader to read and keep as a handy reference.
I hope that other series of wartime records will be published to use as valuable references for researchers, teachers, and students alike.
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Renu Gill
5.0 out of 5 stars Addictive
Reviewed in the United States on 27 January 2026
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I was tired of seeing people argue online with total confidence but zero evidence. I wanted something that’s actually based on documents, not just “everyone knows.” I only wanted to double-check a few facts, but I ended up really enjoying it.
I honestly thought it would be super dry… but I ended up reading way more than I planned in one sitting. There’s something weirdly satisfying about seeing real wartime paperwork laid out clearly orders, admin records, the kind of stuff that doesn’t care about modern narratives.
What I liked most is that the book doesn’t try to be dramatic or preachy. It just sticks to primary sources and lets the record speak. Even if someone comes into this topic with strong opinions, this book forces you to deal with what’s actually on paper.
If you want something serious, evidence-based, and not just political noise, it’s worth it. For history lovers like me! I always found this topic unclear, this helped me a lot.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Required reading for truth-seekers
Reviewed in the United States on 5 June 2017
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I began studying the comfort women issue in earnest about three years ago. What struck me at first was the tremendous gap between what respected scholars in Japan and the US were saying about what seemed to me to be a long-concluded chapter of history. Col. Miyamoto's book gives readers an excellent idea of why the comfort women issue lay dormant for so long: it is, indeed, clear from the historical records that Japan had a comfort woman system and that the women were prostitutes, very little different from what other militaries at the time were doing. Therefore, there was nothing really to discuss once the war was over. The documentary evidence confirms what just about everyone who has thought about this issue has long known.
Col. Miyamoto's research also hints at why the comfort women issue flared up into a major international scandal in the early 1990s (with intermittent re-eruptions ever since). What changed was the ways in which Koreans remembered their own past. The comfort women issue, rightly considered, is shameful for all involved, not least the thousands of Korean families who sold their daughters to Korean brokers in exchange for cash. It was that practice, which antedated the Japanese colonization of the Korean peninsula by centuries, which enabled the easy recruitment of women from Korea to serve in comfort stations for the Japanese military. Under the new Korean nationalism, however, such facts are highly inconvenient. Trading in victimhood and tales of Japanese atrocities, the new Korean nationalism seeks a new Korean history, one in which Japan can be held responsible for all of Korea's misfortunes. Hence, the comfort women issue.
Sensing an opportunity to weaken its ancient rival, the Chinese immediately seized on the comfort women issue, and communist groups in all three countries--South Korea, China, and Japan--have been coordinating their efforts for now well over 25 years. (Indeed, it was the Japanese communists who first concocted the comfort women tale, not realizing how well they had built until their communist brethren elsewhere in East Asia began to use the fiction for their own bigger purposes.) It is hardly coincidental that the comfort women issue flares up every time Westerners, or the Japanese, criticize South Korea or China for their numerous and egregious human rights violations. (South Korea regularly detains journalists and scholars for publishing essays critical of the establishment. China's horrors know no bounds, and need no introduction.) The hapless Japanese government, staffed by weak bureaucrats educated under the postwar system of emasculation and historical masochism, acquiesces to every demand for apologies for things that communists create out of whole cloth. The cycle continues as the dysfunctional symbiotic relationship among aggressive communists, feckless politicians, and a hard-left international press has yet to be reformed.
Col. Miyamoto's book cuts straight through all of this and gets down to brass tacks. What was the comfort women system like? Who ran it? What did the comfort women themselves have to say about it when taken as prisoners of war by American troops? Those who want the real story will have to do what truth-seekers have figured out long ago: bypass the media and the universities and get to the documentary evidence to decide for themselves what happened in the past.
I recommend this book without reservation. Required reading for anyone who wants the truth about the comfort women.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars This book annihilates all the fake claims made by Koreans.
Reviewed in the United States on 6 October 2017
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This is by far the best book written on comfort women. This book annihilates all the fake claims made by Koreans. The author proves that all the claims on comfort women made by Koreans are exactly the opposite of the truth. Japan Military transformed poor Korean young women into millionaires. These Korean comfort women bought diamond and built houses in their home villages, precisely because their profits were protected from evil Korean pimps by Japan Military. If the comfort women had not been supervised by Japan Military, these Korean women would have been reduced to real slaves by Korean pimps. Before Japan annexed Korea in 1910, about 40% of Korea's population were slaves. Immediately after Japan annexed Korea, Japan abolished all the social classes in Korea, and liberated all the slaves, and took away the privileges of the ruling class Ryan-pan. All the Korean terrorists were from Ryan-pan who held reverse grudge against Japan that took away their privileges. After Ryan-pan returned to their old position as the ruling class in 1948, they started a series of massacres. From 1948 to 1980, the government of S. Korea massacred 1.4 million Koreans in S. Korea. The biggest one was Bodo League Massacre in which 1.14 million Koreans were massacred. To continue to hide their own crimes, the government of S. Korea started anti-Japan brain-washing education teaching fake history full of lies that are exactly the opposite of the truth.
Franklyn Roosevelt claimed in Cairo Conference of 1943 that Japan has reduced Koreans to slaves. Foreign Minister of Japan from 1941 to 1945 was Togo Shigenori. Togo Shigenori was a Korean whose original Korean name was Pak Moo-dok. This fact alone completely debunks Franklyn Roosevelt's claim that Koreans were slaves in Japan. In the US, the position equivalent to Foreign Minister is Secretary of State. The first black to become Secretary of State was Collin Powel in 2001. Therefore, Japan's Freedom and Justice for All was 60 years ahead of US. Moreover, between 1920 and 1945, Japan Military had 6 Korean Lieutenant Generals and 3 Korean Major Generals. The first Korean Lieutenant Generals were Cho Tong-yun, Lee Byeong Moo, who were promoted to Lieutenant General on 1920 Apr 26. The first black Lieutenant General in US was Frank Emmanuel Petersen Jr. on 12 June 1986.
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5.0 out of 5 stars It is worth everyone's time to get it right
Reviewed in the United States on 28 August 2017
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My name is Brace Lake. I got this book on my wife's Kindle account. So the review is mine.
This was a worthwhile read. It appeared the author's objective was to show the data, the details, and the sources. It certainly goes against the grain of pop culture's narrative of things. He doesn't seem to be an apologist for Imperial Japan, but he also seemed to strive to get it right. He was obligated to tear down the more outlandish claims that are out there and he did so carefully and respectfully. The more outlandish claims are things I've heard before, but he showed his research very well.
Our world today seems to strive to find a victim in all things. The unfortunate part of this kind of effort is that it isn't conducive to healing. When you're looking for victim status, and likely an amount of money, you are unwilling to forgive and forget. What is worse is the likelihood of gross embellishments, which appears to be what is going on with this aspect of history.
Thanks to the author for taking the time to clear this up.
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Margaret OBrien
5.0 out of 5 stars Where There Is TRUTH There Is Healing
Reviewed in the United States on 4 September 2018
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What an EYE OPENER! Quite honestly, the subject of WW11 Comfort Women, was not familiar to me. I'm grateful my introduction to this subject was via Lt. Col. Archie Miyamoto's scholarly approach to this sensitive topic.
Lt. Col. Miyamoto thoughtfully compiled a treatise, calling into serious question the claim, and political landmine, that during WW11 200,000 Korean women were abducted by Japenese military for use as sex slaves, aka Comfort Woman.
An admirable quantity of public documents comprised of captured documents, Allied interrogations, War Crimes trials transcripts & government studies were gathered to present a logical argument that exposed the unsupported belief, that hundreds of thousands of Korean women were obducted from their homeland, without protest from the Korean citizenry.
Hopefully, Lt. Col. Miyamoto's diligence to fairly present the facts of the matter, will lead supporters off the Comfort Women myth, to dissolve their biases, and move forward to mend the strained relationship between Korea & Japan, and enter into an era of mutual support.
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Michael J. Cohen
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Compilation of Historical materials
Reviewed in the United States on 5 March 2018
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women
By Archie Miyamoto
2nd Edition, 2017
The author has collected military records on comfort women from five countries; the United States, the Netherlands, Australia, Japan, and South Korea. Except for few cases, the documents collected are from those of the military of the country during the war years ending in 1945. They are documents produced without political aims. In this sense, they are quite different from those produced in recent decades often with some political aims. Thus, the author presents invaluable evidence for identifying the real characters of “comfort women” , a highly controversial and political issue between Japan and South Korea, also involving the United States.
This compilation indicates clearly that the comfort women were not abducted sex-slaves, nor did they number 200,000. The principal allegations against Japan are shown without evidence. This collection of the documents is a highly effective tool for cooling down unfounded allegations.
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G.
5.0 out of 5 stars The media needs to read this book, WOW!!!
Reviewed in the United States on 23 April 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
The first thing lost in war is truth. After reading Wartime Military Records I see the truth on the comfort women was lost sometime after the war. The book is clear, concise, easy to read, and a paradigm shifter.
The author laid out the entire document sequence for readers to make up their own minds. I was surprised by the conclusion I came to.
As the American father of a half-Asian (non-Japanese) daughter, living in Asia, I expected the documents to support what I read in the papers. Before reading this book I believed that 200,000 women were kidnapped and held as sex slaves.
However, after seeing report after report by the US Army, I do not know how any reporter can type 200,000 women were kidnapped and not be called a shill, or just lazy.
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Brian from los angeles
5.0 out of 5 stars Real reports regarding a secret World War II topic.
Reviewed in the United States on 2 March 2018
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
Fascinating reading, using actual military reports from the era. The issue has been in the shadows for 70 years, it's enlightening to read about the dark comfort women issue in the clipped, facts-only language of military speak.
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robert
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 5 August 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
REVEALS THE TRUTH
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Ommy
5.0 out of 5 stars It is a great military record
Reviewed in the United States on 7 March 2018
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
It is a great military record. It is what it was. No more no less. No happy or Not sad. Stay in fact.
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ymihere
5.0 out of 5 stars Very enlightening
Reviewed in the United States on 12 April 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Not my normal choice of reading material but I found this book changed my understanding of who a comfort woman was.
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Chandler
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent historical essay - the truth comes out!
Reviewed in the United States on 6 May 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Excellent written historical information regarding the true story about the "comfort women"
during the war. The truth finally comes out!
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Kindle Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Distorted. Not all soldiers & Commanders were honorable!
Reviewed in the United States on 4 September 2018
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
I do believe after reading books written by actual comfort women and their families that forced enslavement DID occur. The book is written to prove how honorable the Japanese and their commanders behaved during the war.
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Phil Aslaksen
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 17 July 2018
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
A great book that offers facts to counter all of the misinformation that's out there.
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K
5.0 out of 5 stars All facts, no fiction
Reviewed in the United States on 15 September 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
All facts with no fiction to truly understand the actual history.
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Earl S. Chambers
1.0 out of 5 stars Total Biased Book Not Worth Printing
Reviewed in the United States on 17 September 2017
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
The author must have had ancestor’s in Japanese military during WWII!
He quotes “proof” only when it benefits the Japanese!
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Eduardo d'Agliano-Luna
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on 17 May 2018
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Very well researched and eye-opening.
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Print length
87 pages
Language
English
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Background Information on the Comfort Women Issue
Summary of Contents
U.S./Allied Military Documents
ATIS (Allied Translator and Interpreter Section) Interrogation Reports
Office of Strategic Services [OSS – forerunner of CIA] Reports
Brothels of Japan's Armed Forces in Southeast Asia
U.S. National Archives Interagency Working Group's Final Report to
U.S.
Congress on War Crimes Records
Dutch Military Reports
The Bart von Poelgeest Report
Comfort Women Dutch War Crimes Cases
Dutch Interrogation Reports
Comments on Indonesia
Australian War Crimes Trials
Japanese Government/Military Documents
Japanese Foreign Ministry Documents
Other Japanese Military Documents
Other Japanese Military Records
Korean Original Source Documents
Concluding Remarks
List of WWII Reports/Documents
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세진님, 요청하신 아치 미야모토(Archie Miyamoto)의 <위안부에 관한 전시 군 기록>(Wartime Military Records on Comfort Women)에 대한 요약과 평론입니다.
요약: 제2차 세계대전 공식 문서로 본 위안부 제도
1. 연구의 목적과 배경
<위안부에 관한 전시 군 기록>은 퇴역 미 육군 중령 아치 미야모토가 저술한 책으로, 제2차 세계대전 당시 전개된 위안부 문제에 대해 기존의 통념과 다른 시각을 제시하는 것을 목적으로 한다. 저자는 제국주의 일본군이 주로 한국에서 20만 명의 여성들을 납치하여 성노예로 삼았다는 주장에 의문을 제기하며, 당대 미군 및 연합군이 작성한 1차 사료(Primary Source)를 바탕으로 위안부 제도의 실상을 재구성하고자 했다.
2. 주요 연합군 및 공식 문서의 분석
본서는 다양한 국가의 정부 및 군사 기록을 체계적으로 분류하여 제시한다.
미군 및 연합군 정보기관 보고서: 연합군 번역·통역부(ATIS)의 심문 보고서와 미 전략정보국(OSS)의 기록을 다룬다. 저자는 이 문서들을 근거로 위안부들이 강제로 끌려온 노예라기보다는, 계약에 기반해 고용된 민간인 매춘부에 가깝다는 해석을 내놓는다.
미 국립문서기록관리청(NARA) IWG 최종 보고서: 미국 의회의 명령으로 구성된 나치 및 일본 전범 기록 범정부 실무그룹(IWG)의 최종 보고서를 분석한다. 저자는 수백만 페이지의 기밀 해제 문서 속에서 일본 정부가 조직적으로 여성을 강제 유괴했다는 결정적 증거가 부족하다는 점을 강조한다.
네덜란드 및 호주 군사 재판 기록: 인도네시아 등지에서 발생한 네덜란드 여성 강제 연행 사건(스마랑 사건 등)과 호주의 전범 재판 기록을 검토한다. 저자는 이러한 사례들이 군 전체의 조직적 명령이라기보다는 일부 현지 부대의 일탈이나 범죄 행위였다고 주장한다.
조선인 위안소 관리인의 일기: 본서의 핵심 사료 중 하나로, 당시 위안소를 운영했던 조선인 업자의 일기를 분석한다. 저자는 일기 속에 나타난 위안소의 영업 방식, 수입 분배, 위안부들의 일상 등을 통해 이 제도가 철저한 상업적 계약과 관리하에 운영되었다고 논증한다.
3. 결론적 요지
저자는 연합군, 일본군, 그리고 조선인 스스로가 남긴 1차 문서를 종합했을 때, 위안부 제도는 전시에 합법적으로 운영되던 공창 제도의 연장선에 있었다고 결론짓는다. 강제 납치와 성노예화라는 지배적 담론은 전시 상황의 복잡한 계약 관계와 민간 업자들의 개입, 그리고 군의 위생·보안 관리 조치를 오독한 결과라는 것이 저자의 핵심 요지이다.
평론: 1차 사료의 가치와 역사적 맥락의 한계
1. 1차 사료 발굴의 의의와 방법론적 접근
아치 미야모토의 저작은 감정적 대립이 치열한 위안부 논쟁에서 미군, 연합군, 네덜란드, 호주 정부의 공식 문서와 일기 등 구체적인 <1차 사료>를 전면에 내세웠다는 점에서 서지학적 가치를 지닌다. 특히 구술 증언에 의존하는 기존 연구의 취약성을 보완하기 위해 전시 공문서를 꼼꼼히 분류하고 정리한 점은 칭찬할 만하다. 저자가 제시한 미군 정보 보고서나 조선인 업자의 일기는 당시 위안소의 경제적 구조와 이동 경로, 군의 개입 정도를 파악하는 데 유용한 데이터베이스 역할을 한다.
2. 군사적 관점의 한계와 맥락의 소거
그러나 이 책은 저자가 군인 출신이라는 배경에서 기인한 명확한 한계를 노출한다. 군사 문서의 특성상 행정적 절차와 표면적 규정에 집중할 뿐, 그 문서가 작성된 이면의 사회 구조적 압박을 포착하지 못한다.
예컨대 '계약 체결'이나 '대가 지급'이 문서상 존재한다고 해서, 그것이 식민지라는 특수한 상황 속에서 이루어진 여성들의 자발적 선택을 의미하지는 않는다. 빈곤, 가부장제, 식민지 지배 권력의 압박 속에서 여성이 처했던 취약성을 배제한 채 '합법적 계약'이라는 군사 행정적 틀로만 사태를 바라보는 것은 역사의 다층적 진실을 훼손할 우려가 있다.
3. 증거 선택의 편향성과 일반화의 오류
저자는 네덜란드 여성에 대한 강제 연행 전범 재판 기록을 '일부 군인의 일탈'로 치부하는 반면, 조선인 위안부에 대한 기록은 '상업적 매춘'으로 일반화하는 모순을 보인다. IWG 보고서에서 '조직적 강제 연행의 문서적 증거가 없다'는 결론을 자의적으로 해석하여, 당시 만연했던 사기 포섭, 유괴, 권력에 의한 묵인 등 넓은 의미의 강제성을 부정하는 도구로 삼는다. 1차 사료는 중요하지만, 이를 해석할 때 역사적 맥락을 거세하고 자신에게 유리한 기록만을 선택적으로 취합했다는 비판에서 자유롭기 어렵다.
4. 총평
<위안부에 관한 전시 군 기록>은 감정과 정치적 구호 속에 묻히기 쉬운 전시 공식 문서들을 한곳에 모아 소개했다는 점에서 실증주의적 가치를 인정받을 만하다. 그러나 문서를 글자 그대로만 해석하는 법실증주의적 태도와 식민지 여성들이 처했던 구조적 폭력을 외면한 시각은 본서가 가진 치명적인 약점이다. 이 책은 위안부 문제의 제도적·행정적 측면을 이해하는 참고 자료가 될 수 있으나, 전쟁과 식민주의가 인간의 존엄성을 어떻게 훼손했는가에 대한 포괄적인 역사적 진실을 담아내기에는 그 시야가 지나치게 협소하다.
세진님, 소개해주신 책의 구조와 저자의 독특한 이력이 반영된 내용을 바탕으로 요약과 평론을 작성해 보았습니다. 혹시 특정 문서에 대한 분석이나 평론의 특정 관점을 더 보완하고 싶으신 부분이 있으신가요?
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