Page 231 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

Ishii further said that if the bacteria are disseminated in pure form, they perish when
sprinkled from a great altitude. They had to be put in some kind of envelope, and the best
envelope was fleas. It was therefore decided to use plagueinfected fleas.

Another effective way of employing the bacteriological weapon, according to Ishii, was to
contaminate drinking water and food with the help of pathogenic agents.

Question: Which pathogenic agents did Ishii consider most suitable for use in a future
bacteriological war?

Answer: Already at that time he considered plague fleas the most suitable.

Question: Will you tell the Court about this at greater length?

Answer: Ishii said that plague epidemics arose easily under natural conditions, but that it
was not easy to induce them artificially. A study of the reasons for this showed, he said, that
it was not enough to have the pathogenic agents to start an epidemic; it was necessary to have
a gcod knowledge of physiological conditions and the physiological properties of human
beings. And he said that only by studying the physiological properties of man could one Jearn
how to provoke epidemics artificially.

Question: That is, this study of physiological properties was to be made by means of
experiments on human beings?

Answer: That is so.

Question: Where were these experiments on human beings conducted? What did General
Ishii tell you about these experiments?

Answer: All he told me was that Chinese were being used for the experiments, and that
they were performed both in the detachment, that is, under laboratory conditions, and in field
conditions. He did not tell me anything more on this subject.

Question: And this, according to Ishii, was the detachment's "secret of secrets"?

Answer: Yes.

Question: Did you know that the bacteriological weapon was used against the'Chinese?

Answer: I learned of this in the early part of 1944 from Major General Kitano.

Question: What did Kitano tell you, and in whose presence?

Answer: He spoke of this in my office at the Headquarters of the Kwantung Army. No one
else was present. He told me that a group of several men from Ishii's detachment had gone to

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