Page 43 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

Detachment 731 were intensified, since the spreading of plague germs by scattering plague-
infected fleas was regarded as the most effective means of bacteriological warfare.

On August 11-12, 1945, owing to the advance of the Soviet Army, and with the object of
concealing the fact that weapons for conducting bacteriological warfare had been
manufactured in the Japanese Kwantung Army and that Branch 673 of Detachment 731 under
my command had been involved in these criminal activities, on my orders all the branch's
service premises and living quarters, equipment, materials and documents were destroyed by
fire, and for the same purpose, on my orders, on August 14, 1945, poison in the shape of
potassium cyanide was issued to the entire personnel (120 men) to be taken by them to
commit suicide in the event of the danger arising of their being captured by the Soviet forces.
. . .

From July 1944 to August 1945 (i.e., until the day I was taken prisoner), I, as Chief of the
Training Division of Detachment 731, directed the training of cadres, and the supplying of
the detachment and its branches with same, for the purpose of waging aggressive
bacteriological warfare.

Cadres were trained at courses, training camps and oneyear training courses organized by
the Training Division for men, mainly youths of 17-18, recruited in Japan for service in
Detachment 731.

All those who joined and arrived in the detachment for service went through a seven-day
course of preparation and instruction organized by the Training Division, after which the
division certified as to their suitability for service in the detachment.

During the instruction course, special stress was laid on the secrecy of the work in which
the detachment was engaged.

During the period I occupied the post of Chief of the Training Division of Detachment 731,
a total of 15 officers, 60 employees and 150 privates went through a course of instruction and
verification.

With the object of verifying the work of training cadres at the branches of Detachment 731,
in connection with the graduation of medical orderly trainees, I, together with former Chief of
Detachment 731, Major General of the Medical Service Kitano, in September 1944, inspected
all the detachment's branches.

From the nature of my work in the detachment and the post I occupied, I knew that for the
purpose of testing bacteriological weapons, experiments were performed in forcibly infecting
with lethal bacteria people of Russian and Chinese nationality (including prisoners of war
detained in the detachment's prison). These people were supplied to the detachment by the
gendarmerie and the Japanese Military Mission.

These experiments were conducted all the year round, and when the people who had been
forcibly infected with bacteria died, their bodies were incinerated at a crematorium kept for
this purpose.

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