Hey Pat,
This may be a little scattered, but you sound a little skeptical and this what I could come up with:
1. Trial of Japanese War Criminals, Documents: 1. Opening Statement by Joseph B. Keenan, Chief of Counsel, 2. Charter of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 3. Indictment. Washington: Dept. Of State, 1946. [Appendix D's "Particulars of Breaches," pp. 93-96, lists categories of inhumane treatment of prisoners of war and civilian internees in violation of the Hague and Geneva conventions specifying murder, beatings, torture, ill-treatment, illegal employment, and the rape of female prisoners by members of Japanese forces. Appendix D's Section Ten refers to violations of the Hague Convention such as "Killing enemies, who, having laid down their arms or no longer having means of defense, had surrendered..." Also in regard to the Hague Convention, Section Thirteen refers to "Killing survivors of ships sunk by naval action and crews of captured ships..."]. (
Prisoners of War: World War II)
2. During the war, 67 Army nurses and 16 Navy nurses were captured and spent three years as Japanese prisoners of war. (
Women's roles in the World Wars - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)
3. The above numbers were found to be too low as the number in the obituary for Sally Blaine was cited as 86 Navy nurses at Bataan alone.
Let me see what else I can dig up when I get home. I have a pretty good book if I can find it. One of the reasons its hard to find information on this is becuase POW and female were pretty much synonomous with rape and people just didn't talk about that in those days. What a war scar to come home with. I read one account where the "comfort women" were raped 5-20 times a day, but don't know if female POWs were automatically relegated to that role.