A Tokyo-based private group unearthed a document on a Japanese cabinet decision in 1944, regarding a plan to conscript a total of 290,000 Koreans to provide workforces to mines and construction sites around the island nation. The discovery proved that the number of conscripted Koreans reached its peak in the year in preparation for the war in the Japanese mainland.

The record was part of documents attached to a cabinet decision made on Dec. 28, 1944, concerning the issue of increasing the number of police and temporary officers under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

The document was uncovered by Chosenjin Kyosei Renko Chosadan (the Fact-Finding Team on Truth about Forced Korean Laborers), a group of Korean residents in Japan and Japanese scholars, at the National Archives.

Although some parts of the document were unclear, the ministry planned to send 61,325 forced laborers to Fukuoka, 17,800 to Nagasaki and 14,272 to Fukushima prefectures. Koreans were also planned to be sent to all the other prefectures of Japan, according to the report.

Types of labor fell into four divisions in the report. It said that 119,170 were taken to "coal mountain," 38,831 to "metal mountain," 74,030 to "construction," and 57,969 to "factories and others." As for Fukuoka prefecture where the largest number of Koreans were forced to work during WWII, the data referred to it as "coal mountain 50,525."

The record also provided a new fact that 3,365 Koreans were taken to Chiba prefecture, which was said to be the only prefecture where forced labor did not exist.

"At last, it was proved that Koreans were forcibly taken to all parts of Japan. The record will surely help draw a full picture of wartime slave labor of Koreans," said Hong Sang Jin, director of the fact-finding team.

The group said the recent finding was significant in that the total number and the necessary number of Korean laborers in 1944 in all prefectures were revealed.

The annual numbers of Korean forced laborers were recorded in documents of the then Home Ministry until 1943.

The number of conscripted Koreans in 1944 was recorded only in a report by the US investigation team on strategic bombing compiled in October 1945. However, the credibility of data in the US report has been questioned as numbers were in many cases altered or doctored by the then Japanese authorities after the war to cover up their atrocities.

"Taking into consideration the fact that the then Ministry of Home Affairs was empowered to conscript Koreans, the document is highly credible as it was compiled by the then Home Ministry itself," said Hong.

Before and during the last world war, about two-three million Koreans were shanghaied and brought to Japan to work as forced laborers at military bases, railroad construction sites, in mines and plants across Japan.

Koreans were conscripted to make up for acute labor shortage. Many were recruited into military service as "imperial subjects."

Hong said, "The document clearly shows that more Koreans were taken to construction sites in 1944 than in the previous years." He explained that more Koreans were needed for construction works inland before the war spread to the mainland of Japan.

He added that as a large number of wartime documents are still preserved in government's archives, disclosure of them are urged to give a full picture of the conscription of Koreans.