Page 47 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950
P. 47

aforementioned  expedition  also  took  with  it  typhoid  germs,  but  I  myself  do  not  exactly
               remember this.


                  The object of General Ishii's expeditions of 1940 and 1942 was to perform experiments to
               devise methods for the mass dissemination of bacteria under definite fighting conditions. At
               the same time, however, there were actual cases of the practical employment of bacteria as a
               weapon of war against the Chinese Army. The plague-infected fleas used by General Ishii's
               expedition in 1940 caused outbreaks of plague in the area in which they were disseminated,
               concerning which I gave detailed evidence at the interrogation on October 22, 1949. Whether
               the object was achieved as a result of the use of the afore-mentioned bacteria, I do not know.


                  The bacteria that were produced under my direction were used for experiments to devise
               methods of disseminating bacteria under field conditions that were carried out on a proving
               ground  especially  equipped  for  this  purpose  at  Anta  Station.  These  experiments  were
               performed on living people who were called "logs."


                  At the time I served in the detachment, I knew that the detachment, had a special prison in
               which to keep the people to be experimented on, and who were doomed to die as a result of
               these experiments.


                  Experiments  on  the  proving  ground  at  Anta  Station  were  carried  out  systematically.  I
               myself took part in two of them— the first at the end of 1943, and the second in the spring of
               1944.


                  On  each  occasion  ten  experimentees,  who  looked  like  Chinese,  were  brought  to  the
               proving  ground;  preliminary  to  the  experiments  they  were  tied  to  stakes  driven  into  the
               ground, then bombs containing bacteria were exploded near them. As a result of the first of
               the afore-mentioned experiments, some of the experimentees were infected with anthrax and,
               as I learned later, they died.


                  On both these occasions I went to the Anta proving ground for the purpose of ascertaining
               on the spot the effectiveness of the action of the bacteria I produced. . . .


                  In  addition  to  the  foregoing,  I  know  that  Detachment  731  systematically  performed
               experiments on living people under laboratory conditions. In these cases the experimentees
               were  forcibly  infected  with  various  kinds  of  bacteria,  after  which  they  were  kept  under
               observation for the purpose of discovering the most effective infectious-disease germs.


                  The performance of experiments on living people accelerated the solution of the problem
               that confronted the detachment of devising the most active means of bacteriological warfare
               and methods of disseminating them for the purpose of infecting human beings.


                  Preparing to conduct bacteriological warfare, the Japanese High Command took measures
               to  increase  the  potentialities  of  bacteria  production.  It  was  for  this  purpose  that,  in  1944,
               Detachment 731 began to receive from Japan new equipment which, as former Chief of the
               detachment's 4th Division, Oota Kiyoshi, told me, was more perfect than the old, and enabled
               the work of cultivating bacteria to be conducted on the conveyer system.


                                                           47
   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52