Page 49 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

Lieutenant Colonel of the Office of the Ministry

of Jurisprudence BUSLOVICH for Internal Affairs

for the Khabarovsk Territory,Lieutenant Colonel IVANOV

Interpreter PAKHOMOV

RECORD OF INTERROGATION
OF ACCUSED ONOUE MASAO

December 6, 1949 City of Khabarovsk

Interrogation conducted through interpreter Guryanov, who was warned of his liability to
prosecution for deliberately false interpretation under Art. 95 of the Criminal Code of the
R.S.F.S.R.

Signed: GURYANOV

Question: In the order of December 5, 1949 you are charged under Art. 1 of the Decree of
the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. of April 19, 1943. Do you understand
what you are charged with and do you plead guilty to the charge?

Answer: I understand the nature of the charge brought against me. I plead guilty to the fact
that Branch 643, of which I was in charge, trained cadres of bacteriologist laboratory
assistants; during the period I was in charge of the branch 160 were trained. The branch also
engaged in breeding and catching rodents (guinea pigs, white rats and mice and rabbits)
which were sent to headquarters of Detachment 731, where they were used for making
bacteriological weapons and for experiments in the study of "songo" fever. Furthermore,
Branch 643 engaged in breeding fleas, which were also sent to Detachment 731 where, after
being infected with plague germs, they served as one of the types of bacteriological weapons.
The lst Section of the branch engaged in research on grey rats for the purpose of devising the
most effective means of breeding plague-infected fleas, but no favourable results were
achieved and, consequently, all further research was conducted only on white rats and mice.
By order of Lieutenant General of the Medical Service Ishii, Chief of Detachment 731, on
August 13, 1945, I destroyed by fire Branch 643 with all its materials, equipment and
documents, except for the code and 20-25 grams of fleas, which I sent to the headquarters of
Detachment 731. What the command of Detachment 731 had in view in ordering the branch
to be destroyed by fire, I do not know. I knew that Detachment 731 engaged in devising and
manufacturing large quantities of means of bacteriological warfare, such as the germs of
plague, anthrax and other lethal bacteria, which were tested on living people, for which
purpose the detachment had an inner prison and a proving ground where the experiments
were performed. In the spring of 1944, I, together with the Chief of the General Division of
Detachment 731, travelled by aeroplane to the proving ground where experiments were to
have been made in practically testing bacteriological weapons on living people; but owing to

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