When rape is used as a war tactic
The mass rape of Japanese civilians by US soldiers after WWII.
I have written about it before, but I don’t think many people understand the extent of it or how bad it really was, so here’s what I said:
This is the best article I found on the topic. It is well sourced and you should give it a read:
“Japanese historian Oshiro Masayasu writes about the large scale rape by American soldiers in Okinawa in 1945. He reports the incident at a village in Motobu peninsula where GIs landed and found only women, children and old folks there. What followed was abominable. There was a hunt in broad daylight for Japanese women who were ravaged mercilessly.
There is no documentary evidence that mass rape was committed by Allied troops during the Pacific War. There are, however, numerous credible testimony accounts which allege that a large number of rapes were committed by US forces during the Battle of Okinawa in 1945.”
Shortly after the occupation of Japan, the mass rape by US soldiers was so rampant that after 10 days they just stopped keeping count:
“There were also 1,336 reported rapes during the first 10 days of the occupation of Kanagawa prefecture after the Japanese surrender.”
The Japanese had, in the wake of the surrender, established a "volunteer association" of prostitutes called the ‘Recreation and Amusement Association’.
Its purpose was essentially to supply comfort women for the allied soldiers. The Japanese wanted to protect their daughters from what was percieved as lustful American occupiers, so they created this association-which had both women who believed they were protecting the bloodline of Japan as well as those who were essentially tricked into it to help deter rape:
“Immediately after the Japanese surrendered in 1945, the Japanese Ministry of the Interior made plans to protect Japanese women in its middle and upper classes from American troops.
Fear of an American army out of control led them to quickly establish the first “comfort women” stations for use by US troops. By the end of 1945, the Japanese Ministry of Home Affairs had organized the Recreation Amusement Association (R.A.A.), a chain of houses of prostitution with 20,000 women who serviced occupation forces throughout Japan. (Many more women known as panpan turned to prostitution in the struggle to survive in the midst of the postwar devastation.) Burritt Sabin of the Japan Times reported in 2002 that just days before the R.A.A. was to open, hundreds of American soldiers broke into two of their facilities and raped all the women. The situation prompted MacArthur and Eichelberger, the two top military men of the U.S. occupation forces, to make “rape by Marines” their very first topic of discussion. Yuki Tanaka notes that 1300 rapes were reported in Kanagawa prefecture alone between August 30 and September 10, 1945, indicative of the pervasiveness of the phenomenon in the early occupation.
Historian Takemae Eiji reports that:
“. . . US troops comported themselves like conquerors, especially in the early weeks and months of occupation. Misbehavior ranged from black-marketeering, petty theft, reckless driving and disorderly conduct to vandalism, assault arson, murder and rape. . . . In Yokohama, Chiba and elsewhere, soldiers and sailors broke the law with impunity, and incidents of robbery, rape and occasionally murder were widely reported in the press.”
John W. Dower noted in his book ‘Embracing Defeat’ that while the association existed, it was estimated that there were about 40–70 rapes or sexual assaults per day that occured within association. That doesn’t inlude the many more that occured outside it.
There was enough public outcry that there were several demonstrations against the rapes by Japanese civilians. These demonstrations were cracked down on and the ringleaders were sometimes imprisoned. They silenced any Japanese civilians who attempted to oppose their crimes and made it illegal to write newspapers or comment against their occupation or the bombs until 1952. The US tried to censor all media regarding the rapes, hence the lack of official documentation of the entire ordeal:
“Two weeks into the occupation, the Japanese press began to report on rapes and looting. MacArthur responded by promptly censoring all media. Monica Braw, whose research revealed that even mention of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and particularly the effects of the bomb on civilians, were censored, maintains that pervasive censorship continued throughout the occupation years. "It [censorship] covered all means of communications and set up rules that were so general as to cover everything. It did not specify subjects prohibited, did not state punishment for violations, although it was clear that there were such punishments, and prohibited all discussion even about the existence of the censorship itself."”
With the heavy supression of the media, the suppression of the victims and with the attempt of hiding the reports of rape, the only reliable evidence we have of the mass rape are numerous testimonial accounts from both the victims themselves and US soldiers who admitted they did it or saw someone else take part in it. There is so much evidence that proves that mass rape by the thousands occured that it would be very hard to prove otherwise.
There is more in the article that I recommed you read, because in my opinion, it’s even worse than what the Soviets did in Berlin.
Yet unsuprisingly, the western historian puts numbers on the amount of rape victims to only a few thousand. Some even deny that any rapes happened at all, even though it is well documented with actual credible resources.
Only 3 people were tried for the mass rape, and guess what! All 3 were black.
Here’s the Wikipedia pages on this topic:
Edit: I find it funny how people are trying to defend the Americans in this situation, when many of them are also keen on demonizing the Soviets for the mass rape in Berlin.
Mass rape of Japanese civilians? Pfft, they deserved it after what the Japansese soldiers did in China. Mass rape of German civilains? Those Soviets are monsters. Thank god America doesn’t do anything that evil…
Keep telling yourself that.
Any mass rape against civilains is bad, regardless of who did it or why. I can’t believe I have to tell people this.
