Page 221 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

sprayed on the enemy. The plane then turned back to the airfield, and a caption appeared on
the screen: "Operation Concluded." We then saw the plane landing. A squad of disinfection
orderlies drove up to it, and the plane was shown being disinfected. People were seen
alighting from the plane: the first to alight was Lieutenant General Ishii, and he was followed
by Major Ikari. Who the rest were, I do not know. This was followed by a caption: "Results,"
and a Chinese newspaper was shown, with a translation in Japanese. The explanatory text
stated that a severe epidemic of plague had broken out in the Nimpo area. The concluding
shot was of Chinese orderlies in white overalls disinfecting the plague area. It was from this
film that I learned quite definitely that the bacteriological weapon was employed in the
Nimpo area.

Question: What else do you know about the employment of the bacteriological weapon?

Answer: I know that the Ishii Detachment employed the bacteriological weapon at the time
of the Khalkhin-Gol incident.

In July 1944, I was transferred from the Sunyu Branch to Detachment 731 at Pingfan
Station, as Chief of the Training Division. I took over from my predecessor, Lieutenant
Colonel Sanoda, who left for Japan the very same day. In his safe I found documents showing
that the bacteriological weapon had been employed at the time of the Nominhan incident, that
is, the incident at the river Khalkhin-Gol.

There were photographic negatives of that period, a list of the suicide-men who had taken
part in the operation, and an order by Major Ikari. I remember that the Suicide Squad
consisted of two officers and about twenty non-commissioned officers and privates. At the
foot of the list were signatures written in blood.

Question: Whose was the first signature?

Answer: That of the Chief of the squad, Ikari. Then there were a number of detailed
instructions by Ikari, as to how the men were to arrange themselves in the trucks, and how the
kerosene tins were to be handled, and then a few instructions as to how the men were to make
their way back.

It was clear to me from these two documents that a Suicide Squad consisting of about
twenty to thirty men had contaminated a river with bacteria—I think it was the river Khalkha.

The following day I took these documents to Major Ikari. When I turned them over to him,
I asked him what the results of the operation were. Ikari took the documents without saying a
word.

That there was such an operation is indisputable, but what its results were, I do not know.

Question: What do you know about the freezing experiments conducted by the
detachment?

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