Pulps and the War: All-Story Love , March, 1943

This issue of the romance pulp had the third part of the story series. I don't have the first two parts, unfortunately.

The story is called Enemy Husband. The description goes: ' Because she plotted to escape from the Japanese island of Osako, Ruth Caxton fell into the hands of the native military police. Could she escape paying the price her German fiance expected, when he was the only person who could rescue her from the inhuman treatment of her Japanese captors?'

It fortunately starts off with a recap. Ruth Caxton is American, and was caught in Tokyo when the war began. She married a German secret agent to escape from Japan. She is now on the island of Osako and has been given a note from her American sweetheart.

She's staying with a couple of people, and is being pressured into marrying Kurt. A French maid tells her that the new servants are probably Japanese spies. She refers to the Japanese as 'disgustingly thorough.'

'There are certain establishments where I could send you where you might even think death preferable. Some of our soldiers are a rough lot, and it would amuse them to have an amorous interlude with a pretty little English girl. There are a number of such soldiers, Miss Caxton, and some of them are not as hygienic as one might wish.'

She is put into a cell.

'A cell packed almost to suffocation with Japanese and native women, women in filth and rags, women who by the stench that came from them could not have washed, ever.'

She is questioned for hours, and then put back into the cell. This goes on for days, but finally she is released when her grandfather, the governor of the island and the military police agree she can be released, but only if she immediately marries Kurt. She does so, and they go to his home.

The story gives a hint as to just how bad the actual conditions were for a prisoner of the Japanese. Even women had a rough time of it, and in the story there is a threat that she would become a 'comfort woman,' although the exact term is not used.

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