Japanese Military Massacre of Korean Comfort Women — First Video Evidence Discovered

On February 27, 2018, at the Korea-China-Japan International Conference on Japanese Military Comfort Women (Seoul City Hall, marking the 99th anniversary of the March 1st Movement), video evidence proving the massacre of Korean comfort women by the Japanese military was publicly revealed for the first time.

The Discovered Footage

The 19-second footage was stored at the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). It was filmed on September 15, 1944, the day after the fall of Tengchong (騰衝), Yunnan Province, China, by US-Chinese allied forces.

The footage shows the horrific scene of Korean comfort women's bodies piled up after being massacred. A Chinese soldier removing socks from a corpse before burial is also captured.

How the Massacre Happened

In June 1944, US-Chinese allied forces began attacking Japanese-held positions at Songshan and Tengchong in Yunnan. 70-80 Korean comfort women who had been brought by the Japanese military were in the area.

As defeat became imminent, Japanese operations staff officer Tsuji Masanobu issued what was effectively a 'gyokusai (forced mass suicide)' order to the garrison. On the night of September 13, 1944, Japanese soldiers shot 30 Korean women.

Allied intelligence documents record: "Night of the 13th the Japs shot 30 Korean girls in the city"

Except for 23 survivors captured as POWs by allied forces during the fall, most comfort women are estimated to have been killed.

Discovery Process

The research team led by Professor Chung Chin-sung at Seoul National University's Human Rights Center, funded by Seoul City, spearheaded the excavation.

In 2016, they first discovered massacre-scene photographs from the same location, taken by US Army photographer Frank Manwarren.

Knowing US photo units operated in pairs (one photographer + one videographer), the team hypothesized that "if photos exist, video from the same location must also exist." They manually reviewed hundreds of film reels at NARA and found the footage in 2017.

Significance

Comfort women atrocities were known through survivors' testimony, but some in Japan maintained "testimony alone is insufficient evidence." This footage is significant as it provides US military records (photos, video, documents) corroborating the massacre — evidence beyond testimony.