Tsutomu Nishioka

The Reality of the Mobilization of Koreans During World War II– An analysis based on statistics and written records
Tsutomu Nishioka*
Abstract
In 1965, Japan and South Korea normalized their diplomatic relations and Japan paid South
Korea 300 million dollars with no strings attached in accordance with the Agreement
Concerning the Settlement of Problems in Regard to Property and Claims and Economic
Cooperation. With this payment, both countries confirmed that all post-war claims, includingfor Koreans who participated in wartime mobilization, had been settled “completely andfinally.” Some refer to the wartime of mobilization of people based on the laws of the timeas an inhumane form of “slave labor.” This paper sheds light on the reality of the wartime
mobilization of Korean workers by analyzing official statistics and written records, showingthat there are layers of untruth to descriptions of young men forcibly being taken frompeaceful farm villages to work as slaves.

Japan governed Korea for nearly 35 years, from September 1910 to August 1945. In 1965,
20 years after Japanʼs defeat in the Second World War and the end of Japanese rule over
Korea, Japan and South Korea normalized their diplomatic relations by concluding a
number of agreements, including the Treaty on Basic Relations and the Agreement
Concerning the Settlement of Problems in Regard to Proper ty and Claims and Economic
Cooperation. At that time, Japan paid South Korea 300 million dollars with no strings attachedin accordance with the agreement. With this payment, both countries confirmed that all postwar claims, including for Koreans who participated in wartime mobilization, had been settled“completely and finally.”
Fifty-three years have passed since the signing of the treaties. Since the end of Japaneserule in Korea, 73 years have elapsed̶a period that is more than twice the duration of that rule.
Nonetheless, a South Korean court is currently handling a compensation lawsuit filed by “former
conscripted workers,” who worked for Japanese firms in Japan as wartime-mobilized workers
during the colonial period, and their descendants.
Some refer to the wartime of mobilization of people based on the laws of the time as aninhumane form of “slave labor.” Yet this is not the truth. In this paper, I will shed light on thereality of the wartime mobilization of workers, by analyzing official statistics and written records.

The Wartime Mobilization of Koreans As Recounted by Statistics

The expression “wartime mobilization of Koreans” refers to the sending of Korean laborers
from Korea to Japan (and Sakhalin, then called Karafuto, as well as islands in the Southern
Pacific) in accordance with the Plan for Sending Koreans to Japan, which was created in 1939
based on the National Mobilization Law. The mobilization of soldiers and people working for the
military is sometimes added to this definition. The people who were mobilized were sent to workat private-sector companies, where they were paid relatively high wages usually based on the*

Tsutomu Nishioka is Professor and Head of the History Laboratory at the Institute of Moralogy andVisiting Professor at Reitaku University.

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terms of their time-limited contracts of employment.
At the end of 1938, which was the 29th year since Japanʼs annexation of Korea, the Korean
population in Japan was 800,000 (according to Ministry of Home Affairs statistics; all figures until
1944 are from this source). We should realize that a great number of Koreans were already living
in Japan before the start of wartime mobilization. The population of Koreans in Japan before thestart of mobilization was almost 50 percent greater than the 550,000 who remained in Japan afterWorld War II.
Incidentally, the Korean population in Japan in 1911, the year after the annexation, wasno more than some 2,500, but it rapidly increased to about 30,000 in 1920, ten years after theannexation, and about 300,000 in 1930, another decade on.
Now, what was the Korean population in Japan in August 1945? No accurate statistics exist,
but Yoshio Morita, who was an authority on this issue, estimated that there were about 2 million
Koreans in the following way. (The data is from Ministry of Home Affairs statistics.) “The general
Korean population at the end of 1944 was 1,911,409 (excluding Sakhalin), with many evacuatingto Korea when the air-raids on Japan started in 1945. The statistics until May show that the
number of Koreans going back to Korea outnumbered those going to Japan by more than 10,000.
After that, ferry services were more or less suspended, so the number of Koreans in Japan at theend of the war was about 2 million, taking into consideration the natural increase in population,
and adding soldiers.” (Yoshio Morita, Sūji ga kataru zai-Nichi Kankoku–Chōsenjin no rekishi [TheHistory of Koreans in Japan in Numbers]).
By the end of 1938, a year before the start of the wartime mobilization of Koreans, 800,000
Koreans were living in Japan. This number increased to around 2 million by August 1945. Does
this mean that the difference of 1.2 million Koreans were brought to Japan as part of wartime
mobilization? Nothing could be further from the truth.

Eighty Percent of the Koreans Came to Work in Japan Voluntarily
When the war ended, there were 322,890 Koreans employed at locations designated for mobilized
workers, according to a survey by the Demobilization Bureau. At the end of the war, there were112,718 Korean soldiers and other military personnel in Japan, who were not included in thestatistics for mobilized workers. This gives a total of 435,608 Koreans, which corresponds toabout 22% of the 2 million Koreans in Japan at the end of the war. That figure is equal to about 36%of the 1.2 million increase in the Korean population in Japan that happened during the wartime
mobilization.
At the end of the war, only about 20% of the Koreans in Japan were working at locations formobilized workers. What does this mean?
It means that about 80% of the 2 million Koreans who were in Japan at the end of the war had
emigrated of their own volition. More precisely, 80% of the Korean population in Japan at the endof the war had either emigrated voluntarily or were the children of those who had remained inJapan voluntarily. In other words, the overwhelming majority of Koreans who traveled to Japan
during the wartime mobilization period from 1939 to August 1945 did so outside the framework of
the mobilization plan or chose to live in Japan of their own volition after ending their employment
at private-sector companies that had been designated for mobilized workers.
In order to understand the significance of these figures, and to get at the truth, we must firstunderstand the reality of the Koreans who moved to Japan before wartime mobilization.
Many people moved from the Korean peninsula to Japan during the 35 years of colonial
rule and especially during the years between 1921 and the end of World War II. In September
1923, groundless rumors that spread in the aftermath of the Great Kantō Earthquake led to the
tragic killing of Koreans in quake-stricken areas at the hands of vigilantes. However, the Korean
population in Japan, which had been 60,000 in 1922, continued to rapidly increase to 80,000 in
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1923, when the earthquake occurred, and to 120,000 in 1924, indicating that the flow of people
from Korea did not stop.
Most of the people moving to Japan from Korea were migrant workers and their families.
In fact, this movement of migrant workers did not end during wartime mobilization, but rather
surged. In order to understand this, we must first acknowledge that there were many workers
who migrated from Korea to Japan many years before the start of wartime mobilization.

Explosive Population Growth in Korea under Japanese Rule
What was the reason for this gigantic flow of migrant workers? There were three causes. First,
the number of Korean people grew explosively under Japanese rule. The Korean population was
13 million in 1910 when Japanese rule commenced, and it had grown to more than 29 million by
the end of World War II. There were 25 million Koreans in Korea, 2 million in Japan, 2 million in
Manchuria and North China, and 1 million in the Soviet Union.
Second, life was harsh in the Korean farm villages where most of the population growth
happened.
Third, at the time, Japan had a demand for labor that could accommodate numerous migrant
workers. Labor was needed in the cities, mines, and factories of Japan, so anyone who could pay
the travel expenses could make a living in the country. Due to the short distance, it was possible
to frequently go back and forth between Korea and Japan. The number of people making thejourney every year was more than 100,000 from 1925.

The Endless Stream of Illegal Immigrants
The arrival of a large number of undereducated Korean farmers with insufficient Japanese
language skills caused various forms of friction with Japanese society. Moreover, when Japan
entered a recession, some Japanese workers lost their jobs to Koreans. As will be discussed
more in detail in the next section, there were Koreans who escaped wartime mobilization when
it started and hindered the execution of the mobilization plan by finding employment in Japanese
non-military industries. As such, the Japanese government implemented administrative measures
to severely restrict the movement of people from Korea.
Statistics from the Government-General of Korea show that 163,760 workers and their families
were stopped from traveling to Japan at Busan and other departure points between 1925 and 1937
because they did not have the required certificates or otherwise failed to meet the prescribed
conditions. Furthermore, between 1933 and 1938, as many as 727,094 were stopped in theirhometowns, that is, their areas of residence in Korea. Between 1933 and 1937, for which we havestatistics, 1,087,563 applications to go to Japan were submitted (including re-submissions), of
which roughly 60%, or 651,878, were rejected. The acceptance rate was about 40%, or less thanhalf.
There was also a constant flow of persons who entered illegally without completing the formal
procedures. Measures to send back illegal immigrants to Korea were enforced in Japan. Statistics
from the Ministry of Home Affairs show that as many as 39,482 illegal border crossers were
found in Japan between 1930 and 1942; 33,535 of them were deported.
Of special relevance is that 22,800 illegal immigrants (equal to 58% of all illegal bordercrossers who were discovered between 1930 and 1942) were discovered and 19,250 (equal to 57%
of all those who were deported between 1930 and 1942) were sent home from 1939 to 1942, whichindicates that the number of illegal border crossers actually surged during wartime mobilization.
The Japanese government forcibly sent home about 20,000 Korean illegal border crossers in
the 4-year period for which we have statistics. The mobilization of Koreans for work in Japanwas conducted based on procedures established by law, and illegal immigrants who attempted
to find work outside of the established legal frameworks were deported. This fact was common
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knowledge back then, but it is all but forgotten today. This is the key to understanding wartime
mobilization.

Illegal Immigrants Were Deported
I have pointed out that measures were implemented against illegal immigrants during the same
period that Korean workers were mobilized to work in Japan, with about 20,000 being sent backto Korea during the period from 1939 to 1942, for which we have statistics.
Looking at records of these illegal border crossings, those wanting to go to Japan paid brokers
to be stowaways on small boats, forged travel certificates, pretended to be Japanese, or crossed
over as sailors or fishermen and then escaped.
Note that there were many illegal immigrants who pretended to be mobilized workers as soon
as wartime mobilization started. Illegal immigrants trying to pass themselves off as mobilized
workers were typically 1) those who struck deals with others who were actually supposed tobe mobilized and were given copies of their family registry, 2) those who answered the call tomobilization by taking the place of somebody absent, and 3) those who sneaked in with groups ofmobilized workers when the persons in charge were not looking. They would then escape as soon
as the group arrived in Japan.

The Early Phase of Mobilization and Recruitment: Four Times as Many MigrantWorkers as Recruited Workers
We have so far looked at the situation before wartime mobilization. Based on that, I would now
like to examine the reality of the wartime mobilization of workers. We can divide this period into
the early “mobilization” phase from 1939 to January 1942 and the later “government-mediatedrecruitment” and “conscription” phases from February 1942 to August 1945. Let us first have an
overview of the early period.
The National Mobilization Law was promulgated in April 1938, ramping up the systematic
mobilization of materials and labor needed for the war effort. In 1939, the following year, a major
labor mobilization under the National Conscription Order began in Japan, but this order did not
apply to Korea. Instead, Korean workers were mobilized through a recruitment process thatstarted in September 1939.
This was a recruitment of workers in areas designated by the Government-General, carriedout by businesses producing coal and operating mines in support of the war effort with theapproval of the Ministry of Health and Welfare as well as the Government-General. The recruited
workers traveled to Japan in groups led by their new employers or their representatives. As they
were traveling in groups, the difficulties of individual travel, including the need for individual
travel certificates and individual inspections at the points of departure, were greatly reduced.
This mobilization through recruitment continued until Januar y 1942. Let us ignore thenumbers for January 1942 and get an overview of the situation during the recruitment phase. I
want to examine the statistics for the years from 1939 to 1941.
The Korean population in Japan increased rapidly during this period. It was 799,878 at theend of 1938, but it had increased by 80% to 1,469,230 by the end of 1941. This was an increase of669,352, or almost 670,000 people. Since the natural increase in the population was 81,105, thenumber of Koreans migrating must have been 588,247 or about 590,000. Of these, the number of
recruited workers were 147,136, or about 150,000, according to Ministry of Health and Welfare
statistics, which is 25% of the total.
This means that about 440,000, or 75% of the migrant increase, consisted of people who
voluntarily traveled to Japan outside the framework of wartime mobilization. In other words, thenumber of migrant workers who went to Japan by themselves was three times larger than thenumber of wartime-mobilized workers. It was possible for individuals to make applications to
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migrate even after the start of the recruitment phase. Note that 15,549 illegal immigrants werediscovered and deported in this same period.
It is understandable that a large number of Koreans went to Japan in search of high-wage jobs
as the labor shortage grew more serious in the wartime economy of Japan. There was a huge
outflow of people from Korea. Of those people, only 1 in 4 came within the regulatory frameworkof wartime mobilization.
There was a shor tage of young men in Japan due to militar y conscription, which was
aggravated by the labor mobilization that started in Japan in 1939. This created a considerable
labor shortage that caused the wages of young male workers to soar.
Neither militar y conscription nor labor conscription initially applied to Korea, so there
remained quite a surplus of young male Korean workers. These young men headed for Japan insearch of high wages, just like water flows from high to low. This is what generated the flow of
600,000 migrant workers over a 3-year period.
The Japanese government tried to direct that flow of workers to the coal and metal minesthat were indispensable for the war effort, but were only able to obtain a little more than 50%of the workers stipulated in the mobilization plan and only 1/4, or 150,000, of the Koreans who
emigrated. The remaining 440,000 constituted a huge outflow of people to Japan that occurred
outside the framework of the mobilization plan. Among these people were those summoned byfamily members who had already established themselves in Japan.
One reason why many Korean workers rejected being recruited is that they did not want towork in the underground shafts of coal and metal mines. The majority were farmers and werelikely averse to working underground in coal and metal mines where discipline was strict.
Moreover, jobs for day laborers could be found throughout Japan at construction sites
managed by Korean foremen.

The Later Phase of Mobilization: 40% Escaping Despite “Government-MediatedRecruitment”
With the start of the later period of mobilization in February 1942, the administrative body of theGovernment-General became directly involved in the process for mobilizing workers, which cameto be conducted through what was known as “government-mediated recruitment.” This was likely
a measure to change the situation whereby numerous workers were going to Japan outside theframework of wartime mobilization.
Coal mines, metal mines, construction companies, arms factories, and other businesses
requested the Government-General to provide the number of workers they needed. In response,
the Government-General assigned mobilization quotas to the provinces (corresponding toJapanese prefectures), which in turn assigned quotas to lower administrative levels such as
districts and townships. Recruitment posters soliciting applications were placed at provincial andtown offices, while government officials, the police, and persons of local influence were actively
involved in mobilization activities.
Legally binding conscription began in Korea in September 1944. By the end of March 1945,
there were almost no ferries traveling between Korea and Japan, effectively putting an end to
the wartime mobilization of Koreans. As such, it can be said that labor conscription and its penal
provisions were in effect for no more than seven months. Yet, this does not change the fact thatthe wartime mobilization was legal as Korea was under Japanese rule at the time.
The Korean population in Japan also grew during this period. There were 1,469,230 Koreansat the end of 1942, but this increased to about 2 million by August 1945. This was an increase ofabout 530,000.
The number of workers mobilized from 1942 to August 1945 was 520,548, or roughly 520,000.
That is about the same size as the 530,000 increase in the Korean population in Japan. Looking at
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the completion rate of the mobilization plan (defined as the percentage of the manpower targets
that were met), it was 88% for this overall period. It was 93% for 1942, 81% for 1943, 97% for 1944,
and 12% until August 1945. The completion rate for 1942-1944 was a comparatively high 95%.
We only have the 1942 figures for the natural increase in population, defined as population
growth not caused by immigration. If we take the natural increase of 1942, which was 33,000,
and use that as our standard for guessing the natural increase for the 2.5-year period from 1943
to August 1945, we get 33,000 x 2.5=82,500. This estimate suggests that the natural population
increase from 1942 to August 1945 was 115,500, or roughly 120,000. Since the total increase in the
Korean population in Japan and the number of people mobilized from 1942 to August 1945 wereabout the same, the natural increase in population of 120,000 should be equal to the difference
between the number of immigrants and the number of people who returned to Korea. The
immigrant workers and their families who had come to Japan outside the formal framework of
the mobilization process and who ended up going back home̶thus counterbalancing the natural
increase in population of 120,000̶probably returned to Korea to flee the war. In this period,
the number of migrants who came as individuals (as opposed to coming as part of a group) fell
drastically, and the number of people going back to Korea came to outnumber them as the war
situation deteriorated.
With almost no Koreans heading to Japan as individuals outside the framework of wartime
mobilization, it would seem that the regulated mobilization of workers of workers was realized
during this 4-year period and the situation was favorable compared to the previous three years
during which people were recruited.
The reality is that the wartime mobilization was not going according to plan in this period
either. Most of those employed through “government-mediated recruitment” escaped during theircontract period, instead becoming “free workers” hired as day laborers at construction sites. On
top of this, the majority of those who fulfilled their 2-year contracts disappointed their employers
by not renewing their contracts, opting to become “free workers” as well.
Statistics from the Ministry of Health and Welfare show that the percentage of mobilized
workers escaping since 1939 had gone as high as 37%, equivalent to 222,225 workers, by the endof March 1945. Besides this, there were 52,108 workers who returned to Korea after fulfilling
their contracts, 15,801 who were sent back for misconduct, and 8,904 others. Incidentally, there
were 288,488 people working at the locations designated for those mobilized during wartime,making for a total of 587,526 people who had been initially subject to the provisions of wartime
mobilization.
One popular explanation for the fact that about 40% of the workers escaped is that the workers
were treated badly and made to work under harsh conditions as if in a labor camp. Yet mostworkers did not return to Korea but started working elsewhere in Japan. As discussed above,
there were even those who pretended to be wartime-mobilized workers in order to travel toJapan and then immediately escaped to some other workplace that had been introduced to them
beforehand by brokers.
As a way to prevent escapes, the workers who were mobilized were organized in teams of
50–200 people with appointed leaders. They then traveled to Japan in groups. These teams werealso maintained after work started at the coal mines and other workplaces, and worker training
was conducted in teams.
Yet one survey showed that an astonishing 60% of the workers had no intention of working at
the coal mines for mobilized workers, but used the government-mediated recruitment process totravel to Japan and were thinking about escaping once in Japan. This survey was conducted by
the Institute for Science of Labour at the Chikuhō coalfield in Fukuoka over a period of two weeks
starting in early January 1942. Let us look at the entry on the workersʼ reasons for quitting theirjobs. Note that the citation contains the words “migrating Koreans were granted travel permits
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in October 1939.” This shows that “free recruitment” was understood as a measure that loosened
restrictions and permitted Koreans to travel to Japan to work. This hints at just how many
Koreans wanted to migrate for work:
Ever since migrating Koreans [literally “peninsular people”] were granted travel permits in
October 1939, about 3,000 Koreans have migrated to coal mine E [1 of 6 coal mines in thesurvey. Operated by a local zaibatsu. The mine was already taking in Korean workers.] as ofthe end of 1941. Yet of these, only 1,222 remained as of the end of 1941, while 1,778, or 59.26%,
have quit. Of the first group of 96 workers, only 36 remained to fulfill their 2-year contracts,
while the other 60 quit. That is a resignation rate of 62.5%.
According to comments from labor officials at the relevant coal mines, the following are thelikely causes.
(1) There are many taking advantage of the mobilization process (estimated to be about 60%)
who come to the coal mines in order to enter Japan and then quit. That is, they apply for this“migration” process in order to find employment in Japan. As a result, there are many people
without any intention of working in the coal mines who make use of “officially funded andofficially sanctioned travel,” with expenses paid by the companies. This is identified as theprimary cause of the high resignation rate. This was confirmed by all coal mine offices in thesurvey.
(2) Many are being enticed to work for others. There is intense scouting by individuals whose
job is to recruit people. This has to do with the employersʼ lack of preparation with regard to
the workers, who end up being enticed to leave, as well as the old hiring methods of the coalmines. In particular, despite the fact that the demand for migration permits is great not only
among coal mines and construction companies, but in all industries in Japan, the permits
that are issued go primarily to prioritized businesses. As a result of this big gap between thepermits issued and the demand among the many businesses that receive no permits, thebusinesses with such dramatic demand for labor saw the working force already in Japan as
a potential “source of manpower.” Their efforts to recruit such workers is what explains the“enticement” of workers.
This survey is from when “government-mediated recruitment” had just started, but a reportwith similar findings was published in the specialized journal Shakai seisaku jihō (Social Reform)
No. 280, in January 1944, during the third year when “government-mediated recruitment” was ineffect. In the journal, Tetsushirō Onodera, likely an expert on Korean labor issues, gives sevenfactors prompting the escapes of workers: 1) enticement from the outside, 2) intention to escapefrom the outset, 3) aversion to working in a mine, 4) dissatisfaction with wages, 5) food shortages,6) aversion to a disciplined lifestyle, and 7) excesses in the recruitment process. Of these,
Onodera identified factor 1) (enticement from the outside) as “accounting for the majority ofescapes.” He wrote that “The market price of one Korean worker on the labor market is generally
known to be 30 to 50 yen.” This means that brokers looked for mobilized workers in exchange for
30 to 50 yen per person. That is how big the demand for workers was.
In September 1944, as the number of Koreans wanting to travel to Japan was shrinking due toa deteriorating war situation and the risks of air-raids, the conscription order, which had applied
only to civilian staff of the military in 1941, was proclaimed for all of Korea. Koreans already at
locations for mobilized workers in Japan were also subject to the order, as the authorities tried toprevent workers from escaping. Yet, as described in the previous section, the number of people
at locations for mobilized workers at the end of the war was reported as only 322,890, or less thanhalf of the number of mobilized workers, according to statistics from the Ministry of Health andWelfare, so we can doubt the effectiveness of the legally binding conscription order.
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In other words, even in this period when mobilization was carried out using rather forciblemeans such as government-mediated recruitment and conscription, about 40% of the workers
escaped after arrival, meaning that the mobilization plan, which aimed to secure a large numberof migrant workers for coal mines and other locations, was effectively a failure.

The Failure of the Mobilization Plan
Until this point, we have looked at a variety of statistical data and have shed light on the reality ofthe mobilization plan for Koreans to Japan during the period from 1939 to August 1945. I would
like to conclude by examining what the situation was like by August 1945.
For the duration of the plan, the Korean population in Japan grew by 1.2 million, from 800,000
to 2 million. Of these, 320,000 were wartime-mobilized workers at the end of the war. In addition,
there were 110,000 Koreans mobilized as soldiers or other military staff. Besides them, there
were 770,000 Koreans not part of the mobilization plan, that is, Koreans and their families whochose to live in Japan of their own volition. This group also included a large number of people whocame to Japan through recruitment, “government-mediated recruitment,” or “labor conscription”
and then either escaped before the end of their contracts or opted not to renew their contracts
after their expiration, after which they chose not to return Korea but remained in Japan.

Conclusion
The following are my conclusions from the statistical analysis of the wartime mobilization of
Korean workers.
The wartime mobilization of Korean workers that was implemented based on the National
Mobilization Law from 1939 to 1945 was a policy that sought to control the avalanche of migrant
workers who were seeking employment at construction sites by mobilizing them for the relatively
unpopular coal and metal mines that were necessary for the war effort. This attempt at control
did not go well.
The Plan for Sending Koreans to Korea, created based on the National Mobilization Law, wasa policy that tried to efficiently redirect Korean manpower to industries necessary for the war
effort while numerous people were moving from Korea to Japan.
1.

2.

3.

4.

In the early period of recruitment from 1939 to 1941, there were 140,000 mobilized migrants
who came to Japan in groups and 440,000 migrants who came as individuals. That is, thenumber of Koreans who migrated outside the framework of the mobilization plan was about
three times greater than the number of those who migrated after being mobilized, meaningthat the plan failed. In the same period, 16,000 persons, corresponding to slightly morethan 10% of the number of mobilized workers, were sent back to Korea from Japan as illegal
immigrants.
In the later period of government-mediated recruitment and labor conscription from 1942
to 1945, the stream of migrants coming to Japan on an individual basis all but disappeared.
However, 220,000, or 37%, of the 520,000 mobilized workers escaped from the locations
for mobilized workers so that they could work elsewhere, outside the framework of themobilization plan. Again, things were not going according to plan.
The wartime mobilization plan, which sought to efficiently redirect Korean manpower toindustries necessary for the war effort, was unsuccessful due to the large number of Korean
workers who wanted to work at locations unrelated to the plan..
There are two layers of untruth to descriptions of young men forcibly being taken frompeaceful farm villages to work as slaves. Firstly, Korean workers wanted to work in Japan.
They were not forcibly taken. Secondly, the majority found their own jobs and did not subject
themselves to the control of the Japanese government as it sought to support the war effort.
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