Page 61 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

INTERROGATORS

Military Prosecutor Member of the staff

Major of Jurisprudence BOGOD of the Office of the Ministry

for Internal Affairs

for the Khabarovsk Territory,

Major KONONOV

Interpreter STOROZHKOV

EXCERPT FROM RECORD OF INTERROGATION
OF YAMADA OTOZOO

November 3, 1949 City of Khabarovsk

. . . The official name of Detachment 731 was "The Water Supply and Prophylaxis
Administration of the Kwantung Army," and served as some disguise for the detachment's
actual function. For the same purpose the members of Detachment 731 wore the ordinary
army uniforms without the insignia of the Medical Service. We were afraid that the presence
of a large number of medical servicemen would rouse undesirable suspicion concerning the
actual character of the activities of Detachment 731.

... In August 1944, I visited Detachment 731 and inspected the work of all its divisions.
During this inspection I received reports on the production processes in the cultivation and
mass production of bacteria. I remember that in one of the divisions I saw a high-capacity
system of special apparatus, with the aid of which it was possible to produce a large quantity
of pathogenic germs. The chief of the division gave me the figures of the detachment's output
capacity, but I cannot quote them now.

I must say that in this division the production of bacteria was organized on an immense
scale, and it could produce quantities sufficient to enable them to be used on a mass scale. In
another of the detachment's divisions, in which fleas were bred for the purpose of spreading
epidemics of plague, I saw special repositories in which large quantities of fleas were kept.
The officers of the detachment who accompanied me during the inspection informed me that
the fleas were intended for the purpose of causing plague infection, and that they were one of
the bacteriological weapons.

After I had inspected all the detachment's divisions, I and the officers accompanying me
went up into a tower to watch control experiments in spraying fleas from aircraft, and from

61