What a Former Japanese Soldier Who Served as the Recreation Section Chief Saw and Failed to Say:
Understanding “Comfort Women” System and Comfort Stations through the Memoir, Wuhan Military Logistics Base

During World War II, Japanese soldiers left behind numerous records concerning “Comfort Women” and “comfort stations.” The related records gained significant attention as crucial materials for uncovering the truth, following a series of public testimonies from Japanese Military “Comfort Women” survivors in the 1990s, which heightened social awareness and broadened the understanding of women’s human rights issues.

One such record is Wuhan Military Logistics Base by Seikichi Yamada, published in 1978. This book is renowned for its detailed portrayal of a large-scale “Comfort Women” Street centered around the Hankou Special Comfort Facility in Wuhan, China. Its author Yamada, the Recreation Section Chief of the Japanese military headquarters, directly in charge of managing the comfort stations, offers a vivid account of how comfort stations functioned as spaces for the Japanese army. His writings reveal that, while comfort stations outwardly resembled brothels, they were strictly operated under the Japanese military’s control. This article examines the records presented in Wuhan Military Logistics Base to shed light on the conditions of these comfort stations at the time and the experiences of the Korean women who were forced into “Comfort Women.”

Hankou Special Comfort Facility: A Comfort Women Street with 20 Comfort Stations and 280 Women

Seikichi Yamada, born in 1900, served as an adjutant (副官) at the Wuhan Military Logistics Headquarters in China from October 1941 until Japan’s defeat. Just one month after he arrived in Wuhan, he was appointed Recreation Section Chief, taking responsibility for all matters related to soldiers’ recreation and amusement. This role encompassed overseeing the welfare and recreational services for soldiers, including the management of canteens, officers’ clubs, recreational facilities, theaters, libraries, and Special Comfort Facilities. The author explains, “Among all these, the most concerning places were the comfort stations” (p. 61)

The Hankou Special Comfort Facility was planned and established before the Japanese army entered Hankou in November 1938, allowing it to begin operations immediately upon their arrival. By 1941, when Yamada was appointed in Hankou, the facility was already under control. The facility was also known as Jiqingli, after the name of the street. “The Hankou Special Comfort Facility (Jiqingli) was located on a side street off the main road, surrounded by high brick walls that isolated it from the outside world. Upon entering, there was the patrol station and the brothel owners’ association office side by side on the left” (p. 77). “The patrol station was staffed by officers dispatched from the Hankou Guard Unit, who monitored and controlled persons entering and exiting the area as needed.” (p. 82) This indicates that the women could not easily leave the premises. At that time, the facility housed twenty comfort stations: nine operated by Japanese and eleven by Korean owners. According to this book, the women working there included approximately 130 Japanese women and 150 Korean women. Inside the compound, there were not only comfort stations, but also a pond, a small park where the women at times participated in radio calisthenics, and a memorial tower erected for the women who had died (p. 77).

Inside comfort stations, the names and photographs of the women were displayed side by side, and soldiers chose the women, whose room they would enter (p. 78). The operating hours were divided into shifts: soldiers from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m., non-commissioned officers until 8:00 p.m., and officers afterward (p. 82). Officers were also permitted to stay overnight. This schedule appears to have been designed to prevent overcrowding, but it also implies the women had no time to rest. Medical officers conducted sexually transmitted disease tests on the women once a week. (Because Yamada was not a medical officer, he does not describe much about the testing. More detailed accounts can be found in Hankou Comfort Stations (1983) by Kenichi Nagasawa, who served as a medical officer at the Hankou Military Logistics Base during the same period as Yamada.) The income of comfort stations had to be reported daily to the Military Logistics Command, along with detailed records specifying how many soldiers each woman had served, categorized by ranks—soldiers, non-commissioned officers, and officers (p. 82). These reports were used by the authorities of the logistics command to adjust operations and prevent congestion. From this, it is not difficult to infer that “comfort stations” were regarded as an integral part of military life.

Yamada estimated that each woman served approximately six soldiers, one non-commissioned officer, and one officer per day. If they worked 27 or 28 days a month, they might have earned enough to pay off their wages in advance in about a year and a half (p. 84). However, there are no documented cases of women who could actually repay their advance money and return home. Despite Yamada serving as the Recreation Section Chief for about three and a half years—a period long enough that such cases could have arisen—no such episodes are mentioned in the book. What becomes clear here is that the women remained trapped in the deceptive system of wages in advance, forced to endure ongoing human rights violations.

At the time, the military logistics command maintained detailed records of the women’s backgrounds, as official approval was required for them to work in Hankou. “Once ‘Comfort Women’ arrived, they would visit the recreation section of the logistics command with the required documents, accompanied by the brothel owner” (p. 86). The officer in charge reviewed the paperwork and shared the information with the military police. “Many of the women from Korea were young, around 18 or 19 years old, with no prior experience in licensed prostitution. When asked, ‘The work is difficult—can you handle it?’ they all nodded in agreement, perhaps because the brothel owners had coached them in advance” (p. 86). As part of his investigation, Yamada compiled the statistics according to the women’s “place of birth, age, employment history, education, medical history, family structure, and the amounts of any wages in advance” (p. 86). If these records had survived, they would have provided invaluable insights for understanding and researching the situation. Unfortunately, they are no longer available, as the Japanese military ordered all related documents to be burned after their defeat (p. 288).

Korean “Comfort Women” in Hankou

Then, how was the condition of the women who stayed in Hankou? “Most of the ‘Comfort Women’ came from extremely poor families, and among the Koreans, some were so poorly educated that they were completely illiterate. Many were those who lived through misfortune, such as being orphans or abandoned by men. It is said that some even came of their own accord, sacrificing themselves to support their parents or younger siblings” (p. 81).

As mentioned earlier, Yamada claims that the women arrived fully aware of the work they would be doing in “comfort stations,” but this assertion is highly questionable. For example, Ha Sang-suk, a Korean woman who stayed at this very ‘comfort station’ and later appeared in the film The Murmuring 1 (1995, directed by Byun Young-joo), recalled: “I went to a government office to get a permit. The Japanese wouldn’t issue a permit unless a woman was over 18, so the owner told me to say I was 18” (Seoul National University Human Rights Center, Chung Chin-sung Research Team, Taken, Abandoned, Standing Before Us, Vol. 1 (2018), p. 274). Even in modern prostitution contexts, it is uncommon for women to fully understand the nature of the work before entering the prostitution system. Moreover, Yamada was an older, high-ranking Japanese officer and a stranger to these women. Even if they told him they knew what the work involved, it is difficult to conclude that they truly understood the harsh reality that was awaiting them in “comfort stations.”

Yamada documented stories of women who left a strong impression on him, including several Korean women. Here’s a glimpse into their lives at the time:

The limitations of Records Without Women’s Voices

In Wuhan Military Logistics Base, there is a passage that reveals Yamada’s perspective on the events at the Hankou Special Comfort Facility, which he observed up close. Yamada did not view the comfort station positively—an opinion shared by his superior, Commander Sadao Horie (堀江貞雄). Commander Horie told Yamada, “We have no choice but to acknowledge the ‘comfort station’ as a necessary evil, but let’s consider ways to reduce its harmful effects, even slightly” (p. 60). In his memoirs published after the war, Horie argued that comfort stations had a detrimental impact even on the soldiers themselves. He wrote, “In reality, many young men who had remained completely chaste before arriving at the battlefield were influenced by their surroundings and, due to the presence of such facilities, were ultimately drawn there.” Horie believed it was important to provide other forms of wholesome entertainment while maintaining comfort stations (p. 63, requoted from Sadao Horie, The Voiceless Front [声なき戦線]). Horie also thought it was important to eliminate the exploitation of women by brothel owners and to help the women earn money so that they could quickly pay off their wages in advance and return home (P. 64, requoted from the same book).

In line with this perspective, Yamada tried to provide wholesome entertainment by running libraries and recreational facilities and by investigating the records submitted by brothel owners to check for any suspicious activities. However, these efforts neither reduced the scale of comfort stations nor ended the exploitation by the brothel owners. As if mocking these efforts, the Hankou Special Comfort Facility continued to thrive until Japan’s defeat. Yamada reflects:

Through Wuhan Military Logistics Base, I have explored the perspective of Seikichi Yamada, a Japanese male officer in his 40s who supervised the comfort stations, on “Comfort Women.” As Yamada himself acknowledged in his book, he was neither able to depict the women’s actual lives nor in a position to understand their thoughts or emotions. In other words, it’s important to approach this account with caution, acknowledging that it reflects only the viewpoint of a Japanese soldier, not the lived experiences of the women themselves.

One passage symbolically illustrates this point. After Japan’s defeat, as the soldiers were fleeing back to Japan, Yamada showed no concern for the women’s return. He left behind nothing but the following “irresponsible and arrogant” comment: “When did the women from Jiqingli return to their homeland? I hope they all have a happy later life” (p. 298). In reality, Ha Sang-suk could never leave Wuhan. How could a woman who had been continuously sexually exploited and abandoned in a foreign country, where she couldn’t even speak the local language, be expected to find happiness? Behind Ha Sang-suk, there are many more other women we have never met.

The records left by Japanese soldiers, including Wuhan Military Logistics Base, have already been widely used as crucial sources for understanding the realities of “comfort stations” operations. However, when revisiting these records, I stress it is essential to consider not only what is documented but also what remains unspoken and unseen.