Page 15 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950
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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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