Book Break: ‘Comfort Stations’ as Remembered by Okinawans during World War II

The speakers will be Yunshin Hong and Robert Ricketts.

Okinawa was the only Japanese prefecture to be invaded by US forces during the battle fought there in the spring of 1945. It was also the only part of Japan proper forced to accommodate a network of 146 Japanese military “comfort stations”. After the war, how did Okinawans remember the intrusive and intimidating spaces of the sex venues and their destructive impact on village society? What was their role in the Japanese army’s battle plans? To answer these questions, the author focuses not on Korean and Okinawan comfort women per se, but on the comfort stations and the Okinawans who witnessed them in their daily lives.