The comfort women issue and Japan Airlines flight’s accident at Mt. Osutaka – Don’t leave fake information unrefuted

Japanese: https://i-rich.org/?p=2349

Yumiko Yamamoto
Director, International Research Institute of Controversial Histories (iRICH)

Forty years or so after an incident occurred, when few survivors remain, fake information is spread, and sometimes the utter fabrication may be perceived as a ‘fact.’ “During World War II, the Japanese Army abducted young girls and women in the occupied regions, made them sexual slaves called comfort women, abused them, and when the war was over, most of them were killed.” The lie conceived about the so called comfort women issue is such an example.

And now, another type of fake information is being spread. It is the crash accident of Japan Airlines Flight 123 at Mt. Osutaka in 1985. The comfort women issue and the JAL’s accident may appear completely unrelated, but the common aspect of fake information is the anti-Japanese smear of the Japanese Army and Self Defense Forces.

Fake information linking the suspect to Japan Self Defense Forces

JAL’s flight 123 crashed down on Mt. Osutaka on August 12, 1985, killing 520 people on board, the worst airplane accident in history. The airplane accident investigation committee reportedly ascribed the cause of the crash to improper repair on the rear pressure bulkhead, which led the bulkhead to break down during the flight. The Japan Self-Defense Forces sent about fifty thousand troops for the disaster rescue mission. They accomplished the difficult task of rescuing survivors and retrieving victims’ bodies at a very inhospitable location.

Already at that time, there was a conspiracy-theory type of criticism against the Japan Self-Defense Forces participating in the rescue mission. However, now, forty years after the incident, fake information that the crash was perpetrated by the Self-Defense Forces is being spread again.

The theory of the JSDF as a perpetrator can be summed up as follows:

1)Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force’s escort ship in Sagami Bay during missile launching drill accidentally destroyed part of the JAL aircraft’s vertical tail. 2) Then, two Phantom II jet interceptors followed the JAL plane and shot it down with a missile. 3) After the plane crashed on Mt. Osutaka, the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force burned survivors and bodies, using flame throwers, to conceal evidence. 4) For that operation, they intentionally delayed the identification of the crash site and sending of an airborne brigade for the rescue mission. 5) Since the JAL’s pilot who once belonged to the Maritime Self-Defense Force knew about this plan and possessed materials related to the secret mission, a member of the Self-Defense Forces stripped the pilot’s body found on August 14 of his uniform and destroyed the material evidence.

The theory was too absurd for any member of the Self-Defense Forces or those concerned to believe or refute at that time. However, in the Internet sphere, this kind of fake information attracts many viewers and not a few people believe in the theory. Also, books promoting the theory of the Self-Defense Forces being the perpetrator sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Three books among them were selected for recommendation by the National School Libraries Association and were displayed at school libraries. At Mt. Osutaka, a memorial monument, inscribed with the statement that Passengers, Victims were intentionally killed by the Self-Defense Forces, was installed by bereaved families.

Refute fake information with facts

Deeply worried about this situation, former Self-Defense Forces members and former Japan Airlines employees testified at a symposium held at the House of Councilors Hall on April 16, 2025.

There, the theory of JSDF being the perpetrator was refuted:

1. The escort ship Matuyuki at Sagami Bay was in fact handed to the Maritime Defense Force in March of the following year (1985). At the time of the accident, the ship belonged to Ishikawajima-Harima Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. and the person in charge of the ship was the captain appointed by Ishikawajima-Harima and many of the crew were civilians. As such, no missile was installed aboard the ship. In the first place, a missile launching drill was never conducted in Sagami Bay. If such a drill had been held, many people would have seen flames.
2. Two Phantom II jets of the Air Self-Defense Force scrambled from Hyakuri base in Ibaraki Prefecture at 19:01, four minutes after the JAL plane disappeared from the radar. There was no scrambling before the two Phantoms. Therefore, no Phantom pursued the JAL plane. After the Phantoms returned to the base, it was also confirmed that no missile was launched. Within the Self-Defense Forces, the management and handling of weapons is very strictly conducted. If a plane should return, missing a single missile, it would certainly raise hell.   
3. Immediately after the accident, it is physically impossible to carry portable flame throwers and fuel to the site. According to one book, flame throwers burned the area of 3.3 hectares. However, to burn the area of 3.3 hectares, it will require 220 sets of portable flame throwers, which is equivalent to the total number of portable flame throwers that the Ground Self-Defense Force possesses and 16 to 17 steel drums each containing 200 liters of fuel. In addition, to produce gelled oil, it usually takes one full day or at least five to six hours. To conduct such a huge-scale mission in a little time in secret is totally impossible.
4. As to the identification of the crash site, they tried to identify the accurate location from airplanes. The area burning around the crash site stretched like a long band and using the TACAN (tactical air navigation system) at that time was not free from errors. A little error makes a big difference in the steep mountain ridges. At that time, there was no GPS (global positioning system) available, and it was difficult to specify the location by the ground map. Another book writes that the rescue dispatch order to the First Airbourne Brigade on the day of the accident was changed, and they were ordered to stand by until the next morning, allegedly to intentionally delay the rescue dispatch. This is a sheer lie. In the first place, there was no standby order, and it was the next morning after the crash that the First Airbourne Brigade received the mission order.
5. During the work of retrieving bodies on August 14, there were already many people concerned and media people at the site. If a dead pilot wearing his uniform had been found, everybody would have seen it. It would have been impossible to remove the uniform from the pilot’s body. Aboard a helicopter, bodies were covered with blankets and tightly laid side by side. It was impossible to strip the body of the uniform. As a matter of fact, the pilot body was found on August 29, only the lower jaw and several teeth remaining.

Never repeat the tragedy of the comfort women issue

It is argued that the comfort women in wartime were sexual slaves. People at that time would have laughed off such a story as a lie. However, Yoshida Seiji’s book was published, the Asahi Newspaper reported it in the 1990s, and leftist lawyers and civil groups acted overseas. Consequently, the concept of “comfort women being Japanese military sexual slaves” spread through the international community, and comfort woman statues were installed across the world. If somebody dared to refute the sexual slavery theory, they were harshly criticized as “history revisionist.”

If a member of the Self-Defense Forces refutes the fake information asserting the theory of the Self-Defense Forces being the perpetrator, the Internet speech sphere criticizes it as the perpetrator’s excuse and speech control by the State. Those who delight at the spread of anti-Self Defense Forces information are leftist groups in Japan and South Korea, as well as North Korea and China. Both the comfort women issue and fake information over the JAL crash incident are wars of intelligence and history. They are also wars of recognition, streaming fake or biased information, using information media such as Social Network Services and Internet, and influencing receiver’s thinking and judgement. To protect the honor of the members of Japan Self-Defense Forces and to convey the correct history to the next generation, we must not leave fake information as it is but must patiently keep disseminating the truth.