Page 15 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950
P. 15

until the limbs froze.


                  Witness Furuichi testified:


                  "... A group of Russians, Manchurians, Chinese and Mongolians, with their legs in chains,
               were led out into the frost in parties of from two to sixteen and, on pain of being shot, were
               made to plunge their bare hands (one or both) into barrels of water, and then to keep their
               bare  wet  hands  out  in  the  frost  for  from  ten  minutes  to  two  hours,  depending  on  the
               temperature  of  the  atmosphere.  When  freezing  had  set  in,  they  were  taken  to  the  prison
               laboratory." (Vol. 5, p. 317.) In the majority of cases, these criminal experiments ended in
               gangrene, the amputation of the limbs, and the death of the people experimented on. The
               object of these experiments was to find means of preventing and treating frozen limbs in the
               projected military operations against the Soviet Union.


                    Employment of the Bacteriological Weapon
                              in the War against China


                  The Japanese imperialists were preparing for bacteriological warfare on a big scale, and in
               1940 they already made partial use of the bacteriological weapon in the aggressive war they
               had launched against China.


                  In the summer of 1940 a special bacteriological expedition, commanded by General Jshii,
               Chief  of  Detachment  731,  was  despatched  to  the  theatre  of  hostilities  in  Central  China.
               Aircraft  of  Detachment  731  disseminated  plague  in  the  adversary's  territory  in  the  Nimpo
               area with the help of plagueinfected fleas, as a result of which a plague epidemic broke out.
               (Vol. 3, p. 73.)


                  Interrogated with regard to the organization of this expedition, accused Karasawa Tomio
               said:


                  ". . . In the latter half of 1940, I was instructed by my immediate superior, Major Suzuki, to
               prepare 70 kilograms of typhoid bacteria and 50 kilograms of cholera bacteria. Major Suzuki
               told  me  that  he  had  received  instructions  to  prepare  the  bacteria  from  the  Chief  of  the
               detachment, General Ishii, who was getting ready to organize a special expedition from the
               detachment to employ bacteria against the Chinese Army. . . . I carried out these orders. At
               the same time, I learned from personnel of the 2nd Division that that division had bred five
               kilograms of plague-infected fleas as the carriers of this infection for the use of General Ishii's


               expedition. In September 1940, General Ishii, accompanied by a group of other officers of the
               detachment, left for Hankow, from which they returned in December 1940. The officers who
               had gone with General Ishii stated on their return to the detachment that the employment of
               plague-infected fleas had yielded good results. The dissemination of the fleas had caused a
               plague epidemic. One of the members of the expedition, Major Nozaki, showed me in proof
               of this a Chinese newspaper containing an article which reported that an outbreak of plague
               had  occurred  in  the  Nimpo  area.  The  author  of  the  article  correctly  concluded  that  the
               epidemic had been caused by the Japanese, since eyewitnesses had seen a Japanese plane
               flying over this area and dropping something from a low altitude. I read this article myself."


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