to the Central Liaison Office (CLO), which was attached to Japan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and had been newly established to handle all communication between the Japanese government and SCAP’s General Headquarters. Reports were required to be compiled with the greatest possible detail, and, to aid in identification of the perpetrators, the Peace Preservation Section advised noting the place and date of the crime as well as characteristics of the suspects. These included name, age, appearance, “social status” (mibun), and military rank.155 In order to enable Japanese civilians to identify American military ranks, the Asahi Shinbun printed a short explanatory article with images of American military insignia on the very same day the Home Ministry released its directive.156
Upon reviewing a number of the reports, however, it seems reasonable to conclude that of the criteria which the Home Ministry’s Peace Preservation Section proposed using to identify suspects, it was bodily features that constituted their primary concern, and that fuzzy classifications such as “social status” should in fact be read as racial categorizations. In a memorandum submitted by the CLO on October 12, 1945, for instance, it is reported:
About 11 p.m. September 19, three United States negro soldiers stationed in the area of Iwaimachi, Hodogaya-ku, forced their way into the home of . . . a conscripted Japanese soldier who has not yet been demobilized. One of the negro soldiers was posted outside as a lookout. The other two going inside while holding a jack knife demanded sexual intercourse with [the] wife of the Japanese soldier. [She] ran outside but was caught by the other negro soldier who was stationed outside. She was then dragged to the bushes and raped by the three negro soldiers. Three other negro soldiers passing there also assaulted her.157
Besides place and time, the term “negro soldier” is the only explicit description of the suspects given in the report. Of course, the reporting rape victim cannot be expected to memorize the specifics of such a traumatizing experience, but no other features such as military insignia or personal appearance were reported by the CLO. Compared to other, quite similar reports, it is conspicuous that “negro,” and occasionally “coloured,” were generally used as umbrella terms to categorize nonwhite American soldiers. Although it is hard to prove any racist sentiments on the part of the CLO or the reporting Japanese police, racial categorizations and even racial profiling appear as a recurrent trope in the reports. This is particularly apparent in the reverse case, when skin color is totally absent in a report, for example in reports on crimes apparently committed by white servicemen. This sustains the notion that Japan’s authorities deliberately used the marker of race to report the crimes of nonwhite servicemen.158
Beginning in mid-September 1945, the CLO submitted almost daily reports to SCAP’s General Headquarters concerning crimes presumably committed by members of the occupation forces. In one of the first reports, a twenty-one-page memorandum dated September 19, the CLO listed all incidents between August 31 and September 5, covering six cases of burglary in Tokyo; thirty-three cases of extortion and one attempted rape in Yokohama; one extortion in Kawasaki; two extortions, one burglary, and one manslaughter resulting from a traffic accident in Fujisawa; four cases of burglary, one attempted rape, and four extortions in Yokosuka; two extortions in Kamakura; one extortion in Odawara; three extortions in Isuki; and one kidnapping with rape in Miura, Kanagawa Prefecture.159 The stolen and extorted goods were mostly cars or trucks, watches, money, Japanese swords, clothes (kimono), food, and/or alcohol. Stolen vehicles were often used for further crimes such as kidnapping young women, stealing large amounts of alcohol, or committing serial burglaries. On September 10, for example, the CLO reported that three American soldiers had been driving around in “a car belonging to the Meguro Second Office of the Yamato Motor Car Company situated in Shimizu-machi, Meguro-ku.” According to the report, the soldiers went on a “spree” with the car and forced its chauffeur, Unichiro Shishido, to accompany them. Unichiro later reported to the police that the three soldiers committed “about thirty counts of burglary and intimidation” and later spent the evening with “Geisha girls and passed their time pleasantly until the small hours of the next day.” Upon questioning by the police, the “Geisha girls” also attested that the three soldiers were trafficking various stolen items they had obtained that night, such as several watches and Japanese yen-notes.160
Public flaunting of criminal behavior was not uncommon, and most American servicemen made no significant attempt to cover up their criminal activities. Occasionally, some servicemen even bluntly showed off their intentions. A certain “G.I. Jopha,” for instance, stopped a Japanese truck driver somewhere in the Tokyo-Yokohama area on September 19, took his vehicle, and left an “obligation letter” that said:
One car (Buick) Model ‘1930’.
To be used by the U.S.Gov. for purpose of transporting high ranking officers on official business. After all who won the war, you or me? This certified that this car is to be used to pick up any girls who fuck, and further more who cares what the hell is it to you.
G. I. Jopha (signed)
17-fort soldiers of the winning army, U.S.A.
on this date 19. Sept. 1945.161
Such statements vividly demonstrate the general attitude of superiority of U.S. servicemen in occupied Japan. Especially in the first few weeks, before the whole bureaucratic apparatus of the occupation regime was established and the presence of the victorious military was still totally new to the occupied, the occupation army’s servicemen appeared to be under no strict regimentation. Apparently, this translated for some servicemen into wholehearted engagement in all the various criminal activities occupied Japan seemed to have to offer.162 The dimension of sex in the above-cited reports is particularly apparent, and the references to a night out with “geisha girls” and the truck “to be used to pick up any girls who fuck” substantiate the impression that American servicemen sought sexual adventures and exploited opportunities for them in occupied Japan.
As many of the reports indicate, most sexual assaults were committed along similar patterns. Tanaka Yuki has argued that many servicemen pretended to patrol Japanese neighborhoods to search the area for accessible women. “In many of these cases,” Tanaka highlights, “small groups of G.I.s would intrude into a Japanese civilian house while the family members were asleep to rape the women. Typically, while a few of the soldiers were inside the premises, others were on watch outside the house.”163 In addition, rape or attempted rape often followed the distribution of food or other goods. On many occasions, servicemen offered chocolate, cigarettes, or money in exchange for sexual services. Upon rejection, however, perpetrators often forced women into sexual intercourse by beating and/or threatening them at gunpoint.164 Tanaka’s interpretation thus echoes the evaluation given by the Home Ministry’s Peace Preservation Section in September 1945. The ministry’s analysis and suggestions were explicated in their memorandum about two rape cases in Yokosuka and Tateyama, which both occurred on September 2, 1945. In the first case in Yokosuka, two sailors of the U.S. Navy acted as if they were inspecting the neighborhood. According to the memo, the sailors were purposely ranging the area on midday when most men were at work and the women alone at home. After entering a house, they are supposed to have communicated through unmistakable gestures that they were seeking sexual intercourse and even offered payment. After the women rejected the proposal, the sailors drew their pistols and forced the women to have sex. In Tateyama, located in Chiba Prefecture, another group of two soldiers from the U.S. Eighth Army acted quite similarly. In this case, the memo concluded, it was apparent that the soldiers had knowingly broken the law, because they tried to rape the women “in secret” (hisoka ni) and always posted one man outside as a lookout (mihari ni tatsu).165
The occupiers’ responses to the many and continuing reports of the occupied were rather sobering and probably disappointing for Japan’s authorities as well as for the victims of sexual assaults. Usually, SCAP’s reaction was simply to demand more detailed evidence for the crimes reported and to respond that the scarce information Japan’s
