Japanese ‘Comfort Women’ BROKE DOWN When American Soldiers REFUSED to Touch Them
Broken Petals: Liberation in the Philippines
January 1945.
The pale winter sun rose over a small village in the Philippines, its light filtering through palm fronds and illuminating a row of simple wooden structures behind barbed wire. Inside one such building, twenty-three women huddled on thin straw mats, their hollow eyes fixed on the wooden walls as artillery thunder grew louder in the distance. Each wore a thin cotton yukata, numbered like cattle. Their faces—Korean, Chinese, Filipino—shared the same vacant stare, the thousand-yard gaze of those who had lived too long in hell.
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Rain pattered against the tin roof as American shells exploded in the distance. For the Japanese Imperial forces retreating through this small Philippine village, defeat inched closer by the hour. For the women imprisoned in the garrison’s comfort station, the sounds of approaching American forces brought neither hope nor fear, merely numb anticipation of what new masters might bring. After years of systematic rape and abuse, these women—euphemistically called “comfort women” by their Japanese captors—had learned to expect nothing but further exploitation.
The brutal system of sexual slavery implemented by the Japanese Imperial Army represented one of the darkest chapters in the history of modern warfare. Between 1932 and 1945, an estimated fifty thousand to two hundred thousand women and girls were forced into sexual servitude in Japanese military brothels across occupied Asia. These women, primarily from Korea but also from China, the Philippines, Indonesia, and other occupied countries, were often coerced through deception, abduction, or false promises of legitimate work opportunities.
The Japanese military established these comfort stations with several objectives: to prevent their soldiers from committing random sexual violence against local populations, to reduce the spread of venereal diseases, to boost troop morale, and to prevent security leaks. Yet the system represented an institutionalized form of sexual slavery that subjected women to unimaginable trauma, with many forced to service fifteen to sixty soldiers per day.
For the women in this Philippine comfort station, the distant rumble of American tanks brought a mixture of terror and desperate hope. Their Japanese captors had filled their heads with horrific stories: that American soldiers were cannibals who would eat them alive, that they would be tortured and mutilated if captured. Some women contemplated suicide rather than face what they believed would be an even worse fate.
In a small, dimly lit room at the end of the barracks, Min clutched a small jade pendant—the last remnant of her former life. A Korean girl of nineteen, she had been taken from her village two years earlier with promises of factory work to support the Japanese war effort. Instead, she found herself imprisoned in a system of sexual slavery that had destroyed her body and nearly crushed her spirit. The pendant, a gift from her grandmother, had somehow remained hidden from the guards, becoming her talisman of survival. As American artillery fire drew closer, she tightened her grip on the cool stone, uncertain whether to pray for death or deliverance.
The historical record reveals that the American advance across the Pacific encountered comfort women in various states of desperation. Military documents from the time show that American forces were often shocked by what they found. The 1944 US military report titled “Japanese Prisoner of War Interrogation Report Number 49” documented interviews with twenty Korean comfort women and two Japanese comfort station owners captured in Burma. The report noted that the women had been deceived into sexual servitude with false promises of legitimate work. Many Japanese officers ordered the execution of comfort women as Allied forces approached. In places like Chuuk Lagoon, approximately seventy comfort women were killed ahead of an expected American assault. During the Battle of Saipan, many comfort women committed suicide alongside Japanese civilians and soldiers by jumping off cliffs, having been told that Americans would torture and kill them if captured. In Burma, Korean comfort women took cyanide pills or were killed by hand grenades tossed into their dugouts by retreating Japanese forces.
When American soldiers did encounter surviving comfort women, the interactions often defied the propaganda that both sides had been fed. For the American GIs—many young farm boys from the Midwest or factory workers from industrial cities—the discovery of these broken women forced them to confront a different kind of war crime than they had been prepared to find.
February 3, 1945.
The village fell to American forces after minimal resistance. Staff Sergeant James Miller, a twenty-three-year-old from Nebraska, led his squad through a systematic search of the abandoned Japanese garrison. His boots crunched on shattered glass as he approached the last building in the compound. The door hung half open, creaking in the morning breeze. Miller raised his M1 Garand rifle, signaling to his men to be alert as he pushed the door fully open.
The smell hit him first—the unmistakable stench of unwashed bodies, human waste, and desperation. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he made out the huddled forms of women pressed against the far wall. Some covered their faces, others stared back with empty eyes. His training had prepared him to face armed enemy combatants, not this tableau of human misery.
“Jesus Christ,” he whispered, lowering his weapon. “Jenkins, get the medic.”
For the women who had survived years of systematic rape and abuse, the Americans were initially seen as simply new potential abusers. Years of trauma had conditioned them to view all soldiers as threats. Many Japanese officers had told these women that Americans would rape and kill them—a projection of their own crimes that served as a final act of psychological warfare.
For their part, many American soldiers had been raised in communities with conservative moral values. Their exposure to the brutal reality of institutionalized sexual slavery forced them to confront the depths of human cruelty in ways that even the violence of the battlefield had not prepared them for. Military records and oral histories reveal that many American soldiers responded with compassion rather than exploitation. Their reactions were shaped by both their own moral frameworks and by strict military protocols established to prevent abuses during occupation.
In the small comfort station in the Philippines, Min watched with trepidation as an American medic approached her. Unlike the Japanese soldiers who had used her body without ever meeting her eyes, this young man crouched to her level, his movement slow and deliberate. He offered her a canteen of water and a chocolate bar—simple items that nonetheless represented the first gift she had received in years that came without expectation of sexual servitude in return.
“It’s okay,” the medic said softly, though he knew she likely didn’t understand his words. “You’re safe now.”
The chocolate bar became a recurring symbol throughout their interaction, representing the stark contrast between American abundance and the starvation conditions these women had endured. It stood as a tangible emblem of a different approach to power, one that could be used to nurture rather than exploit. The American soldiers’ rations, their ability to share food casually without concern for scarcity, symbolized not just material wealth, but a different relationship to those under their control.
In his official report, Lieutenant Colonel James Harrison documented the condition of comfort women found at a military installation near Manila. The women were severely malnourished, showing signs of physical abuse, including cigarette burns and untreated injuries. Medical examination revealed widespread venereal diseases and infections resulting from repeated sexual trauma. Many displayed symptoms of acute psychological distress. They initially refused medical treatment, appearing to believe American medical personnel would harm them.
The Lieutenant Colonel’s report revealed the profound mistrust that had been instilled in these women. Their experiences had taught them that men in uniform represented danger, not salvation. For American forces, the discovery of comfort women presented both a humanitarian and strategic challenge: how to provide care for deeply traumatized women, many of whom spoke languages for which they had few or no interpreters; how to establish trust with victims who had every reason to fear men in military uniforms.
Army nurse Lieutenant Sarah Daniels recalled in her 1985 memoir, “They wouldn’t let any male personnel near them at first. Some would scream if a man in uniform entered their field of vision. We had to create all-female medical teams whenever possible. The women were terrified that we were simply preparing them for American soldiers, that they were being transferred from one group of captors to another.”
As American forces established more secure control over liberated territories, protocols evolved for handling the complex situations presented by comfort women. Military documents show that American commanders generally ordered that these women be treated as victims of war crimes and provided with medical care, food, and protection. Translation difficulties often complicated these efforts, as did cultural barriers and the profound trauma the women had experienced.
April 1945.
In a field hospital set up in a former school building, Min sat on the edge of a clean cot, watching American nurses tend to other rescued women. Two months had passed since her liberation, and the physical wounds had begun to heal. She had gained weight, the hollows in her cheeks filling out as regular meals restored what years of deprivation had taken. But her eyes still darted nervously when male voices carried from the hallway, her body tensing in anticipation of violations that no longer came.
An American female interpreter approached with a clipboard. “The Red Cross is helping locate your family,” she explained in halting Korean. “They want to know if you wish to return home.”
Min’s hands twisted in her lap. Home. The concept felt as distant as her childhood. How could she return to her village carrying the shame of what was done to her? How could she face her family knowing the uses to which her body was put? The stigma of sexual slavery would mark her as permanently defiled in a culture that prized female chastity above all else.
The transformation in how these women viewed themselves and their futures represented one of the most profound psychological impacts of their experiences. Historical records and survivor testimonies reveal that many comfort women chose not to return to their home communities after liberation, fearing rejection and ostracism. The shame associated with sexual violence—a burden placed on victims rather than perpetrators—prevented many from reclaiming their former identities. For Min and women like her, the end of physical captivity did not represent true liberation. Cultural attitudes toward female sexuality and purity created invisible prisons that would confine many survivors for decades.
The American liberation forces, for all their material resources and good intentions, could not erase the social stigma that awaited these women if they returned home. This stigma was so powerful that many survivors maintained silence about their experiences for decades after the war. It wasn’t until the early 1990s, nearly half a century after the war’s end, that former comfort women began publicly sharing their stories, breaking a collective silence maintained not just by Japanese denial, but by their own community’s unwillingness to acknowledge their suffering.
June 1945.
The Pacific War continued to rage, but in this small field hospital, a different kind of battle unfolded: the struggle to rebuild lives shattered by systematic sexual violence. Min had become an informal leader among the former comfort women, her improving English allowing her to serve as a bridge between the women and their American caretakers. Today, she sat across from Captain Robert Williams, an intelligence officer tasked with documenting war crimes. Between them on the table lay a plate of American crackers, another symbol of abundance that contrasted sharply with the starvation rations of the comfort stations.
Min picked one up, examining its perfectly uniform shape before taking a small bite. Food remained precious to her, each meal a reminder that her body was now her own again, to nourish rather than be used.
“We need to understand what happened,” Captain Williams explained gently. “Your testimony can help ensure justice.”
Min nodded slowly, though she had no real belief in the possibility of justice. What punishment could possibly balance the scales against what was taken from her and so many others? Still, she began to speak, her voice growing steadier as she provided the details that would eventually form part of the historical record of Japanese war crimes.
The documentation gathered by American forces about the comfort women system would later inform international understanding of these atrocities. Though full acknowledgement and justice remained elusive for decades. While the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal addressed some Japanese war crimes, the Comfort Women System received insufficient attention, with most perpetrators escaping prosecution.
The American documentation efforts revealed a complex reality. Where Japanese propaganda had depicted Americans as bloodthirsty monsters who would rape and murder captured women, the reality was far different. Military regulations strictly prohibited sexual contact with local women in occupied territories, with enforcement varying by unit and commander. While violations certainly occurred—no occupying force in history has a spotless record—the systematic sexual slavery instituted by Japanese forces had no equivalent in American military policy.
For many comfort women, the most profound shock came not from abuse at American hands, but from the absence of such abuse. After years of conditioning to expect sexual violence from men in uniform, the professional conduct of most American personnel represented a disorienting contrast that forced these women to reconsider assumptions that had become survival mechanisms.
“They wouldn’t touch us,” recalled former comfort woman Kim Haksun in a 1991 interview. “We were prepared to continue our lives as comfort women under American control. When we realized they had no such intentions, many women broke down in tears of relief and confusion. After years of daily rape, the absence of violation was itself a kind of shock.”
This testimony highlights a tragic reality. For these women, sexual violence had become so normalized that its absence was disorienting. Their identities had been reduced to sexual objects for so long that being treated as human beings requiring medical care, food, and dignity represented a profound psychological reorientation.
August 15, 1945.
Emperor Hirohito’s surrender announcement crackled over radios throughout the Pacific. In the recovery center where Min and thirty other former comfort women now lived, the news was met with complex emotions. The war that destroyed their lives was ended. But what awaited them in the peace to follow?
For Min, the jade pendant she managed to keep throughout her ordeal had become a symbol not just of her past, but of a possible future. As American occupation authorities worked to repatriate displaced persons throughout Asia, she made a decision that surprised even herself. She would not return to Korea, to a village that would view her as damaged goods. Instead, she applied to work as a translator for the occupation forces, her facility with Japanese, Korean, and now English making her valuable in ways that had nothing to do with her body.
The sound of American military boots in the hallway no longer triggered her flight response. The chocolate bars and crackers freely given had become mundane rather than miraculous. And in this normalcy, in the daily interactions where her mind rather than her body was valued, she began to reclaim something of herself that the war had nearly extinguished.
The diverse paths taken by comfort women after liberation reflected the complexity of recovery from profound trauma. Historical records show that while some women did return to their home communities, often maintaining silence about their experiences, others built new lives in different locations. Some found work with occupation authorities or relief organizations, using language skills acquired during their captivity to forge new identities.
The American occupation of Japan brought its own contradictions regarding sexual exploitation. While American forces had helped liberate comfort women throughout Asia, the occupation authorities tacitly permitted the establishment of a similar system for their own troops. With the approval of occupation authorities, the Japanese government established the Recreation and Amusement Association (RAA), which recruited Japanese women to work in brothels serving American soldiers. This hypocrisy revealed the limited understanding of sexual exploitation as a human rights issue in the immediate postwar period. While American forces had been horrified by the Japanese comfort women system, their own leadership failed to apply the same moral standards to arrangements that, while technically voluntary, were born of similar power imbalances and economic desperation.
September 1947.
Two years after the war’s end, Min stood on the deck of a transport ship approaching San Francisco. Her work as a translator for American occupation authorities had led to an opportunity few former comfort women ever received—sponsorship to study in the United States. The jade pendant still hung around her neck, but it was no longer her only possession. She carried a small suitcase containing clothes, books, and letters of recommendation.
As the Golden Gate Bridge emerged from the fog, she thought about the women she had left behind—those who returned to families in Korea, those who remained in Japan, those who ended their own lives unable to bear the burden of their memories. She alone, among the women from her comfort station, was making this journey toward a new life across the ocean.
The transformation she had undergone was not simply from victim to survivor, but from object to subject—from a woman defined by what was done to her to a woman actively charting her own course. The American soldiers who refused to treat her as a sexual commodity had inadvertently delivered a more profound liberation than they realized. In their restraint, in their adherence to different standards than their enemies, they had created space for her to reclaim her humanity.
The jade pendant caught the sunlight as San Francisco grew larger on the horizon. Min touched it, briefly acknowledging both what was lost and what remained possible. The American dream awaiting her might prove as complicated as her journey so far, but she faced it not as a comfort woman, but simply as a woman, carrying her wounds but no longer defined by them.
Epilogue
The story of the comfort women reminds us that while humanity’s capacity for cruelty may seem bottomless, so too is our capacity for resilience, for compassion, and ultimately for hope. The most profound silence around comfort women would persist for decades after the war. The Japanese government long denied official involvement in the comfort station system, claiming these were private brothels rather than military institutions. It wasn’t until the 1990s that a significant public reckoning began, spurred by surviving women who broke their silence to demand acknowledgement and compensation.
The American encounters with comfort women in the Pacific War reveal a complex historical truth—that even in humanity’s darkest chapters, individual choices matter. While some Japanese soldiers participated in a system of sexual slavery, others showed small kindnesses within that brutal framework. While some American soldiers treated local women as conquests, many others responded to human suffering with compassion and restraint.
The jade pendant that Min carried throughout her ordeal represents something profound about human resilience—the capacity to preserve essential pieces of identity, even through the most dehumanizing experiences. Like that small stone, something within the human spirit resists complete erasure, maintaining the possibility of renewal even after profound violation.
For the comfort women who encountered American soldiers who refused to perpetuate their exploitation, this restraint offered a glimpse of a world where men in power might choose not to abuse it—a vision of freedom more profound than simply changing captors. In the chocolate bars and medical care freely given, in the absence of expected violation, these women experienced not just physical liberation, but the first steps toward reclaiming their dignity and autonomy.
The freedom that arrives with liberation is never complete or uncomplicated. The women who survived the comfort stations carried the wounds of their experiences for life, just as the societies that failed to acknowledge their suffering carried the moral debt of that failure. But in the moment when expected exploitation did not materialize, when American soldiers responded to vulnerability with restraint rather than predation, a different kind of liberation became possible—not just freedom from chains, but freedom to imagine a world where human dignity might one day be universally honored.
In the endless fields of history’s atrocities, these moments stand like small green shoots—not erasing the devastation around them, but testifying to the possibility of renewal and the enduring capacity of the human spirit to begin again, even after the most profound violations.
End
