Page 108 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

Captain PISAREV Interpreter NEGOROZHEHKO

EXCERPT FROM RECORD OF INTERROGATION
OF THE WITNESS TAMURA TADASHI

October 31, 1949 City of Khabarovsk

Tamura Tadashi, born 1905, in Japan, in the Koochi Prefecture, Takaoka County, the
village of Ogawa, of Japanese nationality, higher education. Formerly Colonel in the
Japanese Army, before being taken prisoner—Chief of the Personnel Division of the
Kwantung Army Headquarters.

. . . Although the detachment was officially called The Water Supply and Prophylaxis
Administration, this name was actually a screen to cover up its chief function—a special unit
for preparing to conduct bacteriological warfare and for the mass production of
bacteriological means of attack and defence, of which I myself became convinced when I
visited Detachment 731.

Question: Tell us about this visit in detail.

Answer: I must add to my testimony, before speaking about my visit to Detachment 731,
that I first heard about its function clearly and definitely on taking up my post as Chief of the
Personnel Division of the Kwantung Army Headquarters in December 1944, or to be more
precise, in the first days of January 1945.

. . . Lieutenant General Kasahara, at that time Chief of Staff of the Kwantung Army, told
me that I will have to pay special attention to Detachment 731, since that detachment, as he
told me frankly, was engaged in the manufacture of means of bacteriological attack and
defence, i.e., was preparing to conduct bacteriological warfare.

True, General Kasahara did not tell me then that the detachment was preparing to conduct
bacteriological warfare against the Soviet Union, but that was clear to me without him telling
me, for I knew perfectly well that the function of the whole Kwantung Army was to prepare
for an attack upon the Soviet Union.

During a conversation with Major General Matsumura, Chief of the lst Division of
Headquarters, which I had, soon after my appointment, General Matsumura told me that
Detachment 731 and its experimental work in employing bacteriological means of warfare
was directed by the 1st Division, of which he was in charge.

At the end of May 1945, a letter was received from Lieutenant General Ishii Shiro,
addressed to the Commander-inChief of the Kwantung Army, requesting that the despatch of
the required number of officers to Detachment 731 be hastened.

I do not remember the actual wording of that document, but the gist of it was that in order

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