Page 44 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

I know that in January-March 1945, experiments were performed in the prison in infecting
Russians and Chinese with typhus; in October 1944, an experiment was performed on the
proving ground at Anta Station in infecting five Chinese war prisoners with plague (by means
of plague-infected fleas); in the winter of 1943-44, the detachment performed experiments on
Russians and Chinese in freezing their limbs (I read about this in the experimenter's reports
and saw a special cinema film depicting it).

Furthermore, in January 1945, an experiment, in which I participated, was performed in
infecting ten Chinese war prisoners with gas gangrene. The object of the experiment was to
ascertain whether it was possible to infect people with gas gangrene at a temperature of
2CTC. below zero.

This experiment was performed in the following way: ten Chinese war prisoners were tied
to stakes at a distance of 10-20 metres from a shrapnel bomb that was charged with gas
gangrene.

To prevent the men from being killed outright, their heads and backs were protected with
special metal shields and thick quilted blankets, but their legs and buttocks were left
unprotected. The bomb.was exploded by means of an electric switch and the shrapnel,
bearing gas-gangrene germs, scattered all over the spot where the experimentees were bound.
All the experimentees were wounded in the legs or buttocks, and seven days later they died in
great torment.

I also know of two cases of the practical employment by the Japanese Army of
bacteriological weapons manufactured by Detachment 731.

1. During the Japanese forces' operations against the Soviet and Mongolian forces in the
region of Khalkhin-Gol, in 1939, bacteriological weapons—the germs of typhoid,
paratyphoid and dysentery—were used to contaminate the river Khalkhin-Gol in the area of
military operations.

2. In May-July 1940, in Central China, in the region of Nimpo, an expedition of
Detachment 731 under the command of Lieutenant General Ishii employed plague germs
against the Chinese forces by scattering plague-infected fleas.

I know this from documents that I myself found in the safe of the Training Division which
contained the suicide pledges given by the members of the expedition who were
commissioned to use the lethal germs. Furthermore, I myself saw a cinema film that was
taken in the area of military operations at the place infected, illustrating the effectiveness of
the bacteriological weapons employed.

On the basis of the foregoing, I admit that the purpose of the practical work I performed in
Detachment 731 and at its branch in Sunyu was to prepare to conduct bacteriological warfare,
mainly against the U.S.S.R. and the M.P.R.

I am aware that the war that was being prepared for would have caused great sacrifice of
life among the civilian population, that these weapons of bacteriological warfare and the

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