Page 66 - Marutas of Unit 731

Chapter 7

Anta Testing Grounds

e deliver y of weapons needed to be proven scienti cally and it was the
nd
duty of the 2 division with airplane bombers to handle tests of
bacteriological weapons on a proving ground as well as under battle

conditions for the mass extermination of human beings. Because the Anta

Testing Grounds were only 146 kilometers north of Harbin, Ishii used a light

aircra for the short ight if the only people traveling were him and his aide.
[33]
According to Kawashima during an inter rogation of the Khabarovsk
Trial on December 25, “In the summer of 1941, the Chief of the det achment,

Ishii, called a conference of all the chiefs of divisions and informed us that

an instruction had been received from the Chief of Staff of the Japanes e

Army, the substance of which was as follows: Det achment 731 had done

good work in preparation for bacter iological warfare and, in particular, in

the breeding of plague eas on a mass scale. Plague eas were of great
operational and strategical interest, and it was therefore instructed that

research work in this eld should be intensi ed. e Chief of the

detachment pointed out that one of the det achment’s weakest points was its

inadequate facilities for breeding eas on a mass scale, and that “all attention

must be focused on the mass production of eas.”

nd
e 2 division controlled an aircra unit with specially equipped planes
near the Anta testing grounds as well as a section that engaged in the