vi) The places military authorites could not change designate Yuukaku into comfort stations.
Though military authorites tried to change Yuukaku into comfort stations, all Yuukaku did not want to change. Changing comfort stations was against their tradition, disgraced their names, made precious Geishas women worn out. All Yuukaku could not treat venereal diseases nor deal with a lot of soldiers. As a result, military authorites might have established comfort stations even where Yuukaku existed. However, Mr. Tanigaki just told it. Did a comfort station coexist with Yuukaku at Choushi?

Tanigaki testified that he was ordered to collect infomations by military authorites when he became a military policeman. He bought eight comfort women at Choushi, Naritou, and Mohara's comfort stations to collect information.
He collected the information about the name of soldiers who had sex with the comfort women, such as the condition of constructing positions, contents of work and problem of wages, and all infomation in troop. He taught the eight comfort women military terms and basic knowledge in advance to get some information from soldiers.

The most important purpose would not collect a hostile Army's information but check whether military secrets were leaked out or not. Military authorities might be more nervous to teach comfort women about military terms and basic knowledge than military secrets were leaked out by soldiers.

His testimony is not reliable because the reason why they collect information is unclear. No comfort station would exist at Choushi then. No comfort station has not been found yet.

This type of comfort women might work at comfort station at Fukuoka in 1940 because Navy's units might be at Fukuoka. (As far as Hata investigated, no comfort station existed in Fukuoka in 1940.) However, this type of comfort women could not be working at comfort stations at Osaka and Kobe, which were not the places above reasons. If her testimony is correct, she might have worked at Yuukaku as a Geisha.

Some supporters of comfort women's lawsuit insist this Korean comfort woman was forced into prostitution at Toyama, Japan. A comfort station actually existed at Toyama in 1944.

However, the comfort woman said, "He took me to a low hill in a pitch dark, and he raped me there. I was so scared and I didn't remember anything about men, so I didn't even resist. I should have killed myself by biting my tongue, but I was seized with terror then. We arrived at the barracks with two sentries at the gate. A tent was behind the barracks."

She was not a comfort woman but a victim of rape. (Japanese Army constituted a law against rape in the Army's criminal law. Japanese Army strictly punished a rape crime.) A tent behind garrison posts was not a comfort station. Considering her testimonies, she was sold to comfort station at Matsushiro Headquarters by the soldier who raped her during the movement of his unit. She must have become a comfort women not at Toyama, but at Matsushiro Headquarters.


Reference Data
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