Page 291 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

to the Criminal Division and from there to the Intelligence Section, of which I was the Chief.
An assistant in my section, Tsujimoto, examined these documents, took a decision and
submitted the decision to me. I endorsed it and sent it on Jo the Chief of the Criminal
Division. The Chief of the Criminal Division, after receiving the sanction of the Commander
of the Kwantung Gendarmerie, sent an order in the name of the Commander of the
Gendarmerie to the gendarmerie administration from which the document had been received.

Question: During the period that you served in the Kwantung Gendarmerie Headquarters,
did you sanction the despatch of people to Detachment 731 as "special consignments"?

Answer: I examined these cases, discussed them. I remember that during the period I was
there over a hundred people were sent.

Question: Were people sent by the gendarmerie to Detachment 731 to be exterminated
with the sanction of the Commander of the Kwantung Army?

Answer: Of course, the Kwantung Gendarmerie did this in conformity with the orders of
the Commander of the Kwantung Army. As a rule, the gendarmerie sent criminal cases to
court, to the Military Tribunal, but in these cases a special order overrid the law and the
people were despatched without trial.

Question: You confirm the fact that, in conformity with the instructions drawn up by your
subordinate Tsujimoto, people Connected with the national-liberation movement were sent in
"special consignments" to Detachment 731 to be exterminated.

Answer: The people who were sent in these consignments were criminals of various
categories. Among these categories were also participants in the national-liberation
movement, but all were Communists or nationalists.

(Murmur of indignation in courtroom.)

Question: Tell us, witness Tachibana, how the people were sent to Detachment 731, what
was the order of despatching, convoying, guarding, secrecy, etc.

Answer: As I have said already, a gendarmerie administration sent to the Chief
Gendarmerie Administration an application for permission to send a "special consignment."
For this purpose an application was drawn up in three copies, one of which remained in the
local gendarmerie administration, and two were sent to the Chief Gendarmerie
Administration. After official sanction for the "special consignment" had been received from
the Chief Gendarmerie Administration, one of the copies of the application was returned from
there and the prisoner was kept in the gendarmerie administration. Then, when a request was
received from Detachment 731 for experimental material, that is, for people doomed to be
sent in "special consignments," the prisoner, with a copy of the application, was sent to
Harbin where, on the Harbin railway station, the prisoner was handed over to members of the
gendarmerie. These people were convoyed by gendarmes.

Question: Were the people under convoy chained, or bound?

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