Hirofumi Hayashi

Hirofumi Hayashi (林 博史, Hayashi Hirofumi; born April 6, 1955) is a historian, an authority on modern Japanese history, and is a professor of politics at the Kanto Gakuin University. He has been conducting research on the Japanese occupation of Southeast Asia, Japanese war crimes, and war crimes trials including the subject of comfort women.

Education and career

Hayashi graduated from the University of Tokyo in 1979, and then obtained master's degree from Hitotsubashi University. In 1985, he was accepted as a full-time lecturer in the College of Economics at the Kanto Gakuin University, became an assistant professor, and was granted his current position as professor in 1999.

Historical research

Over the course of his career Hayashi has researched Japanese history during World War II. He has researched the Sook Ching massacres in Singapore,[1] discovered that US war crimes trials began on Guam before the Japanese surrender in 1945.[2]

When consulted on school textbooks, he criticised the Textbook Authorization Council for distorting passages from his 2001 book The Battle of Okinawa. He argued that Okinawa residents' mass suicides were effectively under the control of the Japanese military, even if no direct orders were given.[3]

Hayashi has discovered documentary proof of Japanese military's wide and common involvement in the forced sexual slavery of the comfort women on Java in Indonesia, in Lansong Province in Vietnam, and in Guilin City in China.[4][5]Historian Ikuhiko Hata has also written on issues related to Japanese wartime history and the comfort women system.[6][7][8]　

On Feb 25, 2014 Hayashi said, "The claims to inspect the credibility of the testimony made by these comfort women are intended to deny the whole existence of the comfort women itself".[9]

On April 7, 2014, Hayashi found evidence of the forced sexual slavery on Bali in Indonesia.[10]

References

  1. ↑ Yoneyama, Shiro Masayoshi Tsuji: engineer of genocide or peace? July 27, 2000 Japan Times Retrieved December 16, 2015
  2. ↑ War-crimes trials began on Guam before surrender: archive June 14, 2003 Japan Times Retrieved December 16, 2015
  3. ↑ Military ‘forced’ Okinawa mass suicides November 28, 2007 Japan Times Retrieved December 16, 2015
  4. ↑ 「慰安婦」問題 強制性示す新資料 研究者ら公表 東京裁判で証拠採用 Shimbun Akahata Retrieved December 16, 2015 (in Japanese)
  5. ↑ 極東国際軍事裁判に各国が提出した日本軍の「慰安婦」強制動員示す資料 Shimbun Akahata Retrieved December 16, 2015 (in Japanese)
  6. ↑ Hata, Ikuhiko (2018). Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone. Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 9780761870333.
  7. ↑ Dreyer, June Teufel (19 September 2018). "[BOOK REVIEW] 'Comfort Women and Sex in the Battle Zone' by Ikuhiko Hata". Japan Forward. Retrieved 17 May 2026.
  8. ↑ "Japanese historians seek revision of U.S. textbook over 'comfort women' depiction". The Japan Times. 18 March 2015. Retrieved 17 May 2026.
  9. ↑ 林博史氏「談話検証は慰安婦の存在自体を否定するため」2014年2月27日 Chosun Online (in Japanese) Archived March 7, 2014, at the Wayback Machine
  10. ↑ しんぶん赤旗 2014年4月7日(月) Shimbun Akahata Retrieved December 16, 2015 (in Japanese)


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