In 1942, a lieutenant paymaster in Japan’s Imperial Navy named Yasuhiro Nakasone was stationed at Balikpapan on the island of Borneo,
assigned to oversee the construction of an airfield. But he found that sexual misconduct, gambling and fighting were so prevalent among his men that the work was stalled.
Lieutenant Nakasone’s solution was to organize a military brothel, or “comfort station.” The young officer’s success
in procuring four Indonesian women “mitigated the mood” of his troops so well that he was commended in a naval report.
Lieutenant Nakasone’s decision to provide comfort women to his troops was replicated by thousands of Imperial Japanese Army
and Navy officers across the Indo-Pacific both before and during World War II, as a matter of policy. From Nauru to Vietnam,
from Burma to Timor, women were treated as the first reward of conquest.
We know of Lieutenant Nakasone’s role in setting up a comfort station thanks to his 1978 memoir,
“Commander of 3,000 Men at Age 23.” At that time, such accounts were relatively commonplace and uncontroversial
— and no obstacle to a political career. From 1982 to 1987, Mr. Nakasone was the prime minister of Japan.
Imperial Japan’s military authorities believed sex was good for morale, and military administration helped control sexually transmitted diseases.
Both the army and navy trafficked women, provided medical inspections, established fees and built facilities. Nobutaka Shikanai,
later chairman of the Fujisankei Communications Group, learned in his Imperial Army accountancy class how to manage comfort stations,
including how to determine the actuarial “durability or perishability of the women procured.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/15/opinion/comfort-women-and-japans-war-on-truth.html?_r=0
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