Gov't calls U.S. resolution on apology to sex slaves 'regrettable'

Thanks for your kind words. They are much appreciated.

 

(My former post seems missing. Please delete that if it appears.)
Zoku Nihon No Teiso was a reprint version with a little change to the title of Nihon No Teiso (1953) a post war best seller by Mizuno Hiroshi who worked as an interpreter for the US forces. He compiled letters and notes written by pan-pan girls. Though it was well read by somewhat anti-American left wingers among others, you may safely say it is still a first hand information.

 

Nihon no Teiso and Zoku Nihon no Teiso were NOT the same book. Both were put out by a left-wing publishing company called Sojusha. Sojusha was under Communist Party Discipline and commissioned the book to be written by a man who called himself Mizuno Hiroshi, though that was not his real name.

The entire book was a hoax meant to discredit the US military. This was first established by Michael Molasky, a professor of postwar literature, who realized that all of the stories were written by a the same man. He tracked down someone who worked at Sojusha, a man by the name of Hihara Shigenori. Hihara readily admitted that it was a hoax. You can read all about it in THE AMERICAN OCCUPATION OF JAPAN: LITERATURE AND MEMORY by Michael S. Molasky.

ZOKU NIHON NO TEISO was not a reprint of NIHON NO TEISO, but as the name suggests, the second in a series. Like the first, it is also a complete fabrication, put out by Sojusha as well. That book most certainly was written by Goto Ben (or Itsushima Tsutomu (五島勉)), our illustrious writer of books about Nostradamus et al., not the man who used the alias "Mizuno Hiroshi."

Both of them were later republished by Togosha. NIHON NO TEISO was republished under the name SHI NI NOZONDE UTTAERU. ZOKU NIHON NO TEISO was published under the name KUROI HARU.

They are both hoaxes and Communist propaganda.

NIHON NO TEISO is most certainly NOT first-hand information of anything but what kind of filth Communists made up to further their agenda.

In Molasky's words, "THE CHASTITY OF JAPAN [NIHON NO TEISO] is no more a collection of 'true confessions' than professional wrestling is an ancient martial art intended to foster spiritual enlightenment."

They were different books and they were both bad fiction.

 

Palitical struggle can be bad, but here we are talking about etreme criminal acts - sex slaves for an army and mass murders.

 

Sorry I confused the sequel with the reprint. As you said the two books were different.
But how do you think about the article by Mizuma Masanor which was carried in April 11 issue of PAPIO? He wrote it by reading the file of unlawful deeds by the Occupation Army which were originally investigated and recorded by Tokko (Special Higher Police) before they were ordered to dissolve. The file was confiscated by the US until it was returned in 1973 and owned since by the National Archives of Japan. Do you think they are fiction too?

 

There is a basic point that should not be lost. The Japanese atrocities, crimes were committed by the direct order of Japanese army commander and government. I wonder if there is any evidence to show that the occupation commander ordered any rape, killing sprees like what J did in Nanjing and other places. We should not lose the sight of this forum.

 

We are talking about a lot of things here many off topic. My post was directed at therightsofman as his post (read above)raised other questions than the sex slave amendment which I will state again is not America's place. It's Japan's issue to deal with its neighbors. I don't deny Japan's war time history but I do deny the right of the US to pass toothless resolutions.

 

I have never heard of "PAPIO". If you meant, "SAPIO" then I have to say that as a general rule, about eighty percent of what appears in SAPIO can be regarded as fiction.

It's about as reliable as FOX News.

As to the reports written by the Tokko or the Kempei, I've seen quite a few things that are allegedly based on them and most of them are problematic to say the least. They are generally either exaggerated, tendentious or downright absurd. Part of this is the source material. The KEMPEI and the TOKKO had a pattern of reporting a situation that would permit them to exercise greater power and have a stronger place in the bureaucratic hierarchy, with the Army and the Home Ministry jockeying for position. It was in their interests to appear to “discover” crime that the other had not.

That said, even their reports rarely come up to anything like what is alleged by writers citing them.

When one reads the actual reports one is generally confronted with things like that recorded by one of the TOKKO in Iwate prefecture:

"the violence and rape that were the subject of rumor has not taken place."

If you really want to know what happened, the place to look is at the records of the Central Liaison Office in the opening days of the Occupation. They took great pains to record all of the misbehavior of American and Allied troops as they entered the country. They were meticulous in doing so, well aware that this strengthened their position vis-a-vis the Occupation forces.

In these reports, there was no shortage of mischief to be sure, but most of this was in the form of forced barter in which the troops would take things from Japanese or dine in restaurants and leave cigarettes or canned goods.

The reason for this was that Foreign Minister Shigemitsu prevailed on the Occupation forces to not issue occupation scrip and to allow Japan to maintain sovereignty of its currency. Thus the troops had no valid currency and resorted to barter. The less conscientious of them simply took what they wanted and left nothing in exchange.

Very few of them engaged in rape, nor saw any need to. The RAA often met them when they arrived. Some of them literally with truckloads of women.

It has become fashionable in Japan in both the popular media and within academia in certain academic circles in the US to spin horrific tales of mass rape in the Occupation's opening days, but upon cross examination, the tales usually fall apart.

That is not to say that there was no rape. There certainly was that. To see that one only need confirm that is that in the two years from July of 1945 to the end of June 1947 the US military court-martialed 698 personnel for rape. These figures include all of the cases for those involved in the Occupations of Germany, Austria, and Japan combined.

By way of comparison, the latest available figures for rape in Japan put the reported annual total at 2,260.

Allied Occupation forces were not saints, but on the whole they comported themselves far better than did the forces of their enemies and this, in large part, accounts for the relatively peaceful nature of the Occupations.

If you want to know the real story, I suggest you look at the CLO’s (終戦連絡所) correspondence with GHQ. This has been published and edited by Takemae Eiji. The first volume contains a number of complaints about the misbehavior of the GIs. Rape and murder are conspicuous by their absence.

 

What I ask is not your evaluation of SAPIO (sorry my typo), but about Mizuma Masanori's report in the magazine. You seemed to insist that what Tokko recorded was generally exaggerated or downright absurd because of their jockeying with the Kempei for a stronger place in the bureaucratic hierarchy by discovering crime that the other had not. But did they still have to do that after the other (actually both of them) was to be disbanded after the Japanese surrender in August 1945? (It's interesting Tokko was infamous for anti-communism stance ironically incompatible with Communist Party discipline under which Sojusha allegedly was as you say.)
So you negate Goto Ben's work because of his later publications? Goto wrote pieces for women's magazines and often it was sort of genre report featuring subcultural aspects of the society. Freelance writer is not necessarily an expert historian. Michael S. Molasky is? Would you let me know in what way his book (Zoku Nihon No Teiso) was a fabrication in stead of reportage?



Sorry the "forced barter" was often regarded as looting in the case of Japanese soldiers.



Was what was reported to have happened in a hospital in Omori in April 1946 also a rumor or fiction spun out with truckloads of not women but GI's? Sounds rather like what may have happened in Nanjing?
Another question: Why don't the US House of Representatives demand for apology from Japan too for the truckloads of women prepared by the RAA?



Was every rape case brought to the US military court-martial in the first place?
And would you kindly at least compare the figure for rape in Japan around 1945?
Unfortunately violence and rapes didn't end even after the Occupations, though the Diet of this country don't seek apology form the Allies including the Soviets.

 

It's quite clear that you have a deep emotional attachment to believing in the mass rape story. If that is the case then you will not be dissuaded. I have already given you the location where the records of the CLO can be observed. Tell me, what motive would they have for covering up rape?

I have already told you that the book's publisher, Sojusha, which I remind you was under JCP discipline, is ON RECORD admitting that the book is a hoax undertaken specifically to discredit the United States. I gave you the source. If you refuse to believe that, well there isn't much I can do about that. As to Molasky, he is a professor at the University of Minnesota.

As to the so-called Omori hospital rape I can only wonder if you got that from Mizuma's article.

You see, the original source of that little yarn is also Goto Ben. You can find it pages 53 - 58 of ZOKU NIHON NO TEISO or KUROI HARU.

Oops.

Funny that so many of these horror stories have the same few origins, isn't it?

As to Goto Ben's reliability, there really isn't much to contest. The man is a hack writer who will pen anything to get a buck. He has been since the fifties.

As for Goto's capacity as a historian his new preface to KUROI HARU written in 1985 contained this little gem.

". . . the original plan of the American leadership (or more precisely, of the group of elite Jews that were manipulating them) was to exterminate the entire Japanese race throughout the entire land with several tens of bombs which were comparatively more effective at massacre than was the uranium bomb used on Hiroshima."

Sorry, but Goto is simply not a historian. He is and always has been nothing but a sensationalist. He was given a bunch of fabricated nonsense by Sojusha and he wrote a pot boiler. According to Hihara it took him all of a week.

KUROI HARU is not history. It is pornographic propaganda.

 

That some politico in the US has jumped in on a volatile subject and tried to score points with his constitutents and that US political pressure was brought in on an issue 60 years ago while there are many more pressing and important issues that should be addressed.

On the other hand I find it regrettable that Abe said what he did to set him and his countrymen into this position.

I also think that they should issue an apology and be done with it. And that if these apologies satisfy the US, then the issue should be considered over.

 

I don't believe in a "story". I just asked how Goto's book was a fabrication instead of reportage aside from his being historian or not or hack writer. That's why I asked if it sounds rather like what may have happened in Nanjing.

And again I ask seriously why don't the US House of Representatives demand for apology from Japan for the truckloads of women prepared by the RAA? It does not seem to be a fabricated nonsense under any communist influence.

 

Regarding Goto, the evidence surrounding his writing shows that he is no better a recorder of the past than predictor of the future. His paranoid delusions about evil Jewish conspiracies, presented as "fact" should be sufficient to call his work into question. I have already provided you with all the evidence that a reasonable person would need to conclude that Goto's book is a pure fabrication.

If you choose not to accept that evidence, that says more about you than it does about about what actually happened.

Moderator: All readers back on topic please.

 

All these differences point to one thing:
LEAVE HISTORY TO THE FUTURE HISTORIANS.

We, in the private sectors, can debate from all sides and disagree with each other as much as we like, but rushing to resolutions, apologies or textbooks without grasping the truth is the dumbest thing politicians anywhere can do.

This stupid resolution without any concrete evidence backing up its claim should be ignored and be returned to the sender.

The apologies expressed by many Japanese politicians in the past should be more than enough for the moral responsibilities for the misery many had suffered in the war.

This "culture of victims" may be permissible among victims, but it can not be allowed to spill into politics, laws or history.

 

It doesn’t matter how many Japanese women during the post war occupation period were raped, which we will never find out. Trusting the numbers given by the occupation force is as stupid as trusting the number of rapes reported by the Japanese military force in China, or by the Soviet army in Germany. None of that American soldiers were cleaner BS is necessary. But that has nothing to do with the imbecility of the U.S. Congress regarding the topic here.

The problem is that the U.S. military men utilized the same type of comfort stations in Japan during the occupation period, or in Korea and Vietnam during the two wars, and yet such bonehead resolution was passed. This will have severe long term damage to the authority of the U.S. government in the mind of righteous people, especially among the Japanese. Very regrettable indeed...