Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II

by John W. Dower

The sexual implications of having to accommodate hundreds of thousands of Allied servicemen had been terrifying, especially to those who were aware of the rapacity their own forces had exhibited elsewhere as well as of the huge numbers of non-Japanese women who had been forced to serve the imperial troops as ianfu or “comfort women.” In the wake of the emperor’s surrender broadcast, rumors spread like wildfire that “the enemy, once landed, will violate women one after the other.” The Home Ministry’s intelligence analysts immediately recognized the link between these rumors and the behavior of their own forces abroad. As one internal police report put it, “many of those who speak of pillage and rape, unsettling people’s minds, are returnees from the war front.”6 Urban families were urged to send their womenfolk to the countryside. Women were advised to continue to wear the baggy monpe pantaloons of the war years rather than more enticing feminine attire. Young girls were cautioned not to appear friendly. Still, it was taken for granted that the foreigners would demand sexual gratification. The question was simply: who would provide it? The government lost no time in answering this question. On August 18, the Home Ministry sent a secret wireless message to regional police officials throughout the country instructing them to prepare special and exclusive “comfort facilities” for the occupation army. Such preparations were to be made with maximum discretion. Responsibility for...