“Describe Your Pleasure Sounds” — The Audio Recording That Humiliated Japanese Women POWs-ZZ
Describe your pleasure sounds.
Five words in English.
From an American interrogator holding a microphone.
Okinawa, July 1945.
An interrogation room carved from concrete and fear.
Eight Japanese female PWs sit on wooden benches.
Signal operators, nurses, civilian auxiliaries, survivors of a battle that turned the island into a graveyard.
Ako, 21, hasn’t spoken to a man in 6 weeks.
Her hands are folded in her lap, fingernails digging into her palms hard enough to draw blood.
Captain Morris, 33, US Army intelligence, stands in front of them, warweary, exhausted.
He’s holding a realtoreal recording device.
The microphone hums with an electronic buzz that fills the silence like static.
Sergeant Hayashi, 28, a nay translator from San Francisco, shifts his weight.
Morris nods at him.
Hayashi clears his throat.
Translates.
Kimo noetsumeai.
The women freeze.
Rea, 24, the highest ranking woman in the room, blinks.
Her brain tries to process the words.
Then her stomach drops.
Tomoko, 19, the youngest, vomits immediately.
The sound echoes off the concrete walls.
Over 140,000 Japanese PS were captured by US forces by wars end.
Only 80 were women.
Aiko is one of them.
And right now, sitting in this room, she’s certain she knows what comes next.
For months, Japanese propaganda drilled one message into every female soldier.
If the Americans capture you, they will humiliate you in ways that will make you beg for death.
And now an American officer is asking them to describe their pleasure sounds on tape.
This apparently is how it starts.
Morris looks confused.
Why is she? He gestures at Tomokco, who’s bent over, dry heaving.
I just asked them to describe sounds that comfort them.
prayers, lullabies, whatever helps them cope with stress.
Hayashi’s face is pale.
Sir, the phrase I used in Japanese, it has a different Morris cuts him off.
Just ask again, slower.
[Music] We thought we’d be executed or worse.
Ako’s breath comes shallow and fast.
Her throat tightens.
She can’t look at Morris.
Can’t look at the microphone.
Can’t look at the tape reel spinning.
Recording every second of this nightmare.
Quick question.
Comment below.
What country are you watching from right now? I want to see how far this moment travels across the world.
Morris’s boots tap impatiently on the concrete floor.
He doesn’t understand why the room feels like it’s suffocating.
Hayashi repeats the question slower this time and Raina understands what he’s actually asking.
The tape reel clicks as it spins.
Morris thinks he asked, “Describe sounds that bring you comfort or satisfaction.
” What Hayashi actually said, struggling with limited vocabulary, trying to find the right phrase, was kimoi no sets shait.
In 1940s Japanese, kimoi doesn’t just mean feeling.
It means that feeling, the intimate kind, the kind you never ever discuss, especially not with men, especially not as prisoners.
and Koi voice sound cry to the women in this room.
Hayashi just asked them to describe their sexual sounds on tape for American intelligence officers.
Ako’s vision blurs.
Her heart hammers so hard she can feel it in her teeth.
Japanese military conditioning 1944.
91% of female personnel were taught that sexual assault by enemy forces was inevitable upon capture.
They were given one instruction.
Save the last bullet for yourself.
Zero training on what if they just ask questions.
Rea’s jaw clenches.
She’s trying to understand the logic.
Why would they ask this? What information could possibly be gained? Or is the cruelty the point? Is this how they break you before the real interrogation begins? Morris looks at the women, looks at Hayashi.
Why are they all crying? I just asked about comfort sounds, lullabibies, prayers, whatever helps them sleep at night.
Hayashi’s throat tightens.
Sir, the phrase I used, it doesn’t translate cleanly.
In Japanese, it has a different connotation.
Morris blinks.
What kind of connotation? Hayashi hesitates.
Intimate, sir.
Sexual.
The room goes silent.
Morris’s face drains of color.
Jesus Christ.
Stop the recording.
But it’s too late.
18 minutes already on tape.
US military employed roughly 6,000 Nissi translators in the Pacific theater.
Only 150 were trained in cultural context translation.
understanding connotations, not just words.
Hayashi wasn’t one of them.
He learned Japanese at home from his grandmother.
Never formal training, never military context.
And now eight women are convinced they’re being psychologically tortured before execution.
Sergeant Watanabe, 26, an American MP guarding the door, hears the sobbing, knocks.
Everything okay in there, sir? Morris doesn’t answer.
He’s staring at the tape recorder like it’s a bomb.
Tomokco is still bent over, dry heaving.
Raina’s hands are shaking.
Aiko has bitten through her lip.
Blood drips onto her uniform.
Shikashi watada.
I thought he was going to violate us, but he was just asking questions.
Morris looks at Hiashi, then at the women, then back at Hiashi.
Morris slams his hand on the stop button.
Click.
Outside the room, Hayashi explains.
His voice is low, urgent, humiliated.
Sir, in Japanese culture, the phrase I used kimoi nocoy, it’s not something you discuss ever, especially not women with men.
Especially not as prisoners.
Morris closes his eyes.
So, I just asked eight women ps to describe their what? Their sexual.
Yes, sir.
That’s what they heard.
Jesus Christ.
18 minutes 43 seconds.
That’s how long the tape ran before Morris stopped it.
18 minutes of sobbing, vomiting, and silence so thick you could cut it with a knife.
US Army Intelligence Protocol, 1945.
Psychological profiling via cultural dissonance interviews.
The idea was to assess enemy morale, cultural conditioning, propaganda effectiveness, ask questions about comfort, fear, coping mechanisms.
Record the answers.
Analyze the patterns.
Nobody thought to train translators on cultural connotations.
Inside the room, Lieutenant Shaw, 31, US Army Nurse Corps, enters.
Red Cross armband, medical bag.
She doesn’t speak Japanese, but she doesn’t need to.
She can see the distress written on every face.
Miko, 26, a former school teacher, tries to explain to the other women what’s happening, but she can’t make sense of it herself.
Maybe it’s a test.
Maybe if we answer, they’ll let us go.
Or maybe if we don’t answer, they’ll Raina cuts her off.
It doesn’t matter.
We’re already dead.
Shaw kneels next to Ako, checks her pulse.
Too fast.
Checks her pupils.
Dilated.
checks her lip bleeding.
“What the hell happened in here?” she asks in English, knowing no one will understand.
But the question doesn’t need translation.
The answer is written in the blood on Ako’s uniform.
[Music] Where was Inakata? The words are the same, but the meanings are completely different.
We didn’t know.
Shaw looks at the tape recorder, still sitting there, microphone cord draped across the table like a snake.
Raina stares at it.
Can’t look away.
Why, Shaw wonders.
Why is she fixated on the machine? She doesn’t know yet.
But Raina saw something.
Something the others missed.
When Morris hit stop, Hayashi was supposed to rewind the tape.
Standard protocol.
erase the recording if it’s not usable.
But Morris was too flustered.
He just left.
And Raina saw Corporal Miller, 22, the intelligence clerk, slip into the room 5 minutes later.
Saw him press record again.
Saw him make a copy.
Morris looks at Hayashi, then at Shaw, then at the tape recorder.
That tape gets destroyed tonight.
Shaw’s stethoscope is cold against Aiko’s chest.
Heartbeat 140 beats per minute.
Normal resting rate 6080.
Breathing shallow, rapid, irregular.
Tomokco has bitten through her lip.
The bleeding won’t stop.
Shaw applies pressure with gauze.
Tomoko flinches but doesn’t resist.
Outside, Captain Reyes, 38, the camp commander, arrives.
Morris hands him the report.
Reyes reads it.
His jaw tightens.
You asked them what? It was a mistransation, sir.
Hayashi didn’t.
I don’t care if it was a mistransation or divine intervention.
You just traumatized eight PS during a routine psychological assessment.
Reyes’s pen scratches furiously across the report.
You’re off interrogation duty permanently.
Morris nods.
Doesn’t argue.
He knows.
Nurse Betty Collins, 27, assists Shaw.
She’s gentle, soft hands, soft voice, but she doesn’t understand the cultural weight of what just happened.
To her, it’s just another stress response, another panic attack, another day in a P camp.
But to the women in that room, it’s the confirmation of everything they were told to fear.
USP camp psychological incidents, Pacific Theater, 1945.
47 reported cases of cultural miscommunication causing distress.
This case, not officially reported, buried to avoid scandal, filed under administrative error, no actionable intelligence gathered.
Japanese female PS who spoke publicly about interrogation experiences before 1980.
Fewer than three.
Ako will never speak about it.
Not to her family, not to her husband, not to her daughter, not until the day she dies.
Shaw finishes her examination.
All eight women are medically stable.
No physical injuries beyond Tomoko’s lip and some self-inflicted nail marks on Aiko’s palms.
but psychological.
Shaw writes in her notes, “Severe acute stress response.
Recommend 48 hour observation.
No further interrogations.
” Reyes looks at Hayashi.
You’re reassigned.
No more female P interviews ever.
Hayashi nods.
He’s relieved.
He never wants to see that look on another woman’s face again.
[Music] We didn’t hate him.
We hated ourselves because we didn’t understand why we were so afraid.
Reyes walks to the tape recorder, ejects the reel, holds it up.
This gets destroyed.
Tonight, I’ll do it myself.
But protocol requires all intelligence recordings to be cataloged first.
A clerk will transcribe the audio before destruction.
That clerk is Corporal Miller, 22 years old, collects souvenirs from the war.
Doesn’t understand the weight of what he’s about to take.
Reyes hands Miller the tape, transcribe it, then bring it back to me for destruction.
Miller salutes, takes the tape, walks out, and makes two copies instead of one.
The tape reel worsers as Miller rewinds it.
He’s alone in the transcription room, headphones on, typing phonetic approximations of Japanese words he doesn’t understand.
Kimoi noi, he types.
Doesn’t know what it means, doesn’t care.
He’s supposed to transcribe it.
File the transcript, then return the tape to Reyes for destruction.
Standard protocol.
But Miller has a problem.
He’s a collector.
Flags, swords, documents, photos, anything he can fit in his duffel bag when he ships home next month.
And audio recordings, even better.
Lightweight, easy to conceal.
Nobody checks for them.
He glances at the door.
empty hallway.
He has 12 minutes before anyone comes looking.
He sets up a second reel, presses record on both machines simultaneously.
The original plays the copy records 18 minutes 43 seconds.
Duplicated perfectly.
When it’s done, he rewinds the original, puts it back in its case, labels it.
Okinawa female interview, July 45th, transcribed.
The copy, he slips it into his bag, unlabeled, anonymous, just another souvenir.
Rea knew she saw him enter the room earlier.
Saw him set up the second machine.
Saw the copy disappear into his bag.
She didn’t say anything.
What would she say? To whom? In what language? And even if she could, who would believe her? US military souvenir collection by personnel.
Pacific theater.
Estimated 40 60% of soldiers took unauthorized items.
Flags, swords, documents, photos, audio recordings, unknown number, easy to hide, impossible to track.
This tape rediscovered in 1987, National Archives, donated as part of Miller’s estate after his death.
But Raina doesn’t know that yet.
Right now, sitting in the barracks, she only knows one thing.
The tape wasn’t destroyed.
Their shame isn’t buried.
It’s out there somewhere forever.
Wakayakata watitachi nohajioru.
I saw him make a copy.
It wasn’t destroyed.
Our shame lives forever.
Fumiko 23 Aiko’s bunkmate asks Rea what’s wrong.
Rea says nothing.
Just stares at the wall.
Ako lies on her cot.
Stares at the ceiling.
Her lip has stopped bleeding but the wound in her mind is fresh.
She doesn’t know about the copy.
doesn’t know that 42 years from now a curator in Washington DC will open a box and find her voice frozen in time.
Doesn’t know that her daughter will one day listen to that tape and finally understand why her mother never spoke about the war.
3 months later, October 1945, the war is over.
A Kiko stands at the camp gate, free, but the recording haunts her more than captivity ever did.
October 1945, Hiroshima.
Ako stands in front of what used to be her family’s house.
Half the structure is still standing.
The other half is ash and rubble.
Her mother, 47, survived the bomb.
Her father didn’t.
Her mother sees her at the door.
Stares for a long moment.
Neither speaks.
Then her mother steps aside.
Silent permission to enter.
They sit across from each other.
Green tea and chipped cups.
The tea is weak.
Real leaves are scarce.
But the ritual matters more than the flavor.
Her mother asks the question Ako has been dreading.
What happened in the camp? Ako’s throat tightens.
Nothing.
Medical exams, interrogations, normal.
The lie tastes like metal.
Her mother’s eyes narrow.
Not in anger, in suspicion.
She doesn’t press, but Ako can see the question forming.
What are you hiding? In 1940s Japan, even the question, even misunderstood, is unspeakable shame.
If Ako told the truth, her mother would assume the worst.
Would assume violation, dishonor, permanent stain on the family name.
So Ako says nothing.
That night she burns her P identification papers in the kitchen stove, watches them curl and blacken.
Tries to burn the memory too.
It doesn’t work.
Japanese female PWs who returned home 1945-46 estimated 60 70.
Some died in captivity.
Some stayed abroad too ashamed to return.
Marriage rate among returned female PSWs roughly 30% compared to 85% for women who didn’t serve.
Social stigma lifelong many changed their names moved to different cities.
Pretended the war never happened.
Ako does all three.
1947 she meets Kenji 29.
Arranged marriage.
He’s a kind man.
Works in a bookshop.
Quiet, doesn’t ask about the war.
She’s grateful for that.
They marry in the spring.
She wears white, pretends she’s untouched by the past.
Three children.
1949, 1952, 1956.
She never tells them about the camp, about Morris, about Hayashi, about the tape recorder humming in that concrete room.
She buries it so deep she almost forgets.
Almost.
No, I came home, but my heart is still in that room.
Her mother’s teacup clinks too loudly in the silence.
Ako’s hands shake as she lifts her own cup.
Kenji’s voice is gentle when he speaks to her, but she can’t meet his eyes.
She wonders sometimes what happened to the tape.
Wonders if it was destroyed like they said.
Wonders if anyone else will ever hear her voice from that day.
She doesn’t know that Miller kept it.
Doesn’t know that in 1987, a curator in Washington DC will open a box labeled personal recordings and find 47 reels inside.
One labeled Okinawa July 45th female interview 1985 Washington DC National Archives.
Sarah Brennan, 34, curator, opens a cardboard box labeled Miller Estate Donation WDU Pacific Theater Materials.
Inside 47 realtore tapes, unlabeled anonymous.
Some have handwritten notes.
Saipan 44 Manila interrogation Okinawa MIS.
One is labeled differently.
Okinawa, July 45th.
Female interview.
Brennan threads the tape onto the machine, presses play, static, then voices.
A man speaking English.
Describe sounds that bring you comfort.
Another man hesitant translating into Japanese.
Kimi noetssai.
Then sobbing, vomiting.
A woman’s voice, barely audible, saying something in Japanese.
Brennan doesn’t speak Japanese, but she knows distress when she hears it.
She flags the tape for review, contacts Dr.
James Tanaka, 51, a historian specializing in WW2 Pacific Theater.
Tanaka arrives 3 days later, listens to the tape.
His face goes pale.
What is it? Brennan asks.
Tanaka rewinds, plays it again, translates aloud.
He asked them to describe their pleasure sounds, intimate sounds, sexual sounds.
Brennan’s pen stops midnote.
He what? It’s a mistransation.
The American officer thought he was asking about comfort, lullabies, prayers.
But the translator used a phrase that means something else.
Tanaka explains the cultural context.
In 1940s Japan, discussing anything sexual, especially with men, especially as prisoners, is the ultimate shame.
Worse than death.
National Archives Wand audio recordings.
As of 1987, over 200,000 reels cataloged.
Recordings involving Japanese female PS, fewer than 20 known.
This tape, the only known recording of cultural mistransation causing psychological distress.
Brennan listens to the full 18 minutes 43 seconds.
Here’s Morris stop the recording.
Heares him say, “Jesus Christ, stop.
” Here’s the silence after.
Do we have any way to identify these women? She asks, “Any names?” Tanaka flips through the file, finds one document, a clerk’s transcription, phonetic approximations, eight names listed at the bottom.
He recognizes one.
Rea, last name partially legible.
I can try to track her down, he says, but it’s been 42 years.
She might be dead or she might refuse contact.
Kono Kioku Watashiachi Nohaji Dewanaku Seno Nohaji.
This recording is not our shame.
It’s the shame of war itself.
The tape hisses in the quiet room.
Brennan stares at the spinning reel.
If we find them, she says, what do we tell them? Tanaka doesn’t answer immediately.
Finally, the truth.
That it was a mistake.
That someone finally understands.
He picks up the phone, starts dialing international numbers.
Three are disconnected.
Two refused to speak.
One never responds, but two agree.
Rea, now 67, and Fumiko, now 66.
1981 Tokyo, a small apartment overlooking the Sumida River.
Rea, 67, sits across from Dr.
Tanaka and his research assistant, Yuki, 29.
She agreed to the interview, but now sitting here, she’s not sure why.
Tanaka explains, “We found a recording from July 1945.
Okinawa, eight women.
We believe you were one of them.
” Raina’s hands tighten around her teacup.
I don’t want to hear it.
I understand, but I think you should because it proves something.
Proves what? That it was a mistake.
A mistransation.
The American officer thought he was asking about comfort sounds, prayers, lullabies, but the translator used the wrong phrase.
Raina closes her eyes.
I know.
I figured that out eventually, but it doesn’t change what we felt that day.
Tanaka nods.
That’s why your testimony matters.
Not just what happened, but what you thought was happening.
He plays the tape.
Rea hears her 24year-old voice, hears Morris, hears Hayashi, hears Tamoko vomiting.
She cries, not from shame, from relief.
Someone finally understands, she whispers.
but also grief.
We lived 46 years thinking we’d done something wrong.
Of the eight women in that room, July 1945.
Three are dead by 1991.
Two refused contact.
One never responded.
Two agreed to testify.
Rea and Fumiko.
Ako died in 1989.
Cancer.
Two years before Tanaka found the tape.
Her daughter Heruka, 41, discovers a diary after her mother’s death.
One entry stops her cold.
July 12th, 1945.
The day I wanted to die.
Nothing else, no explanation, no context.
Haruka contacts Tanaka after reading about his research in a newspaper article.
Sends him the diary, asks if he knows what happened.
He does.
He tells her.
Haruka weeps.
Not for her mother’s pain, though that too, but for the silence.
50 years of silence.
Why didn’t she tell me? Haruka asks.
Tanaka has no answer.
Or maybe he does.
Because she thought you’d be ashamed of her.
Fumiko, 66, lives in Osaka, married three children.
Never told her husband about the interrogation.
She listens to the tape, covers her mouth.
I thought I was dirty for 50 years.
I thought I was dirty.
Cara was sorin hinn to shite modeta.
Watashitachi was sor waakumu to shite modeta.
He took it home as a souvenir.
We took it home as a nightmare.
Tanaka asks Raina, “If you could tell Captain Morris one thing now, knowing it was a mistake, what would you say?” Rea closes her eyes, thinks for a long time, opens them, and answers.
Rea’s answer.
I would tell him, “Your words didn’t hurt us.
Our fear did.
And fear doesn’t need a weapon.
It only needs a misunderstanding.
” 1993.
Dr.
Tanaka publishes his findings in the Journal of Military History.
Title: Cultural Collision: Mistransation and Psychological Trauma in Pacific Theater P Interrogations.
The paper is cited in over 200 academic works on military psychology and cultural communication.
The tape is archived at the National Archives with full cultural context explanation.
Content warnings added played only in educational settings.
1995 Tokyo Women’s History Conference.
Fumiko testifies.
Her voice shakes, but she finishes.
I spent 50 years thinking I was dirty.
I wasn’t.
I was just misunderstood.
The audience is silent.
Then standing ovation.
2001.
Haruka donates her mother Akiko’s diary to the Tokyo Women’s War Museum.
The July 12th, 1945 entry becomes the most quoted primary source on Japanese female P experiences.
Tanaka tries to locate Captain Morris, finds his obituary, died 1983, age 71, decorated intelligence officer.
The obituary mentions, haunted by the Pacific Theater.
Tanaka wonders, did Morris ever know the tape survived? Did he ever know what it became? 20110s.
Museum exhibits feature the tape.
Plackard reads, cultural collision.
When words fail, fear speaks.
Visitors listen through headphones.
Most stay for the full 18 minutes 43 seconds.
Some cry, some leave angry.
All leave changed.
The realtore recorder, once a tool of humiliation, is now a teaching tool transformed from weapon into witness.
Japanese female P support networks formed in the 1980s90s now include over 200 members, survivors, daughters, granddaughters, historians.
Rea served as secretary until her death in 2003.
Fumiko spoke at universities until 2008.
Their testimonies live on, archived, translated, studied.
[Music] We felt ashamed, not because we were afraid, but because even if they’d explained, we wouldn’t have believed them.
In war, fear needs no translation.
But understanding does.
Here’s the question.
If you were Raina, hearing that tape played back 46 years later, knowing it was all a mistake, would you feel relief? Or would you feel robbed of those decades you spent in shame? Describe your pleasure sounds.
Five words, mistransated, misunderstood.
But what came after, the tears, the shame, the 46 years of silence, and the tape that finally told the truth, proved that the crulest wounds aren’t always inflicted with weapons.
Sometimes they’re inflicted with words we never meant to [Music]
