Page 70 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

Answer: I fully confirm what I said in previous testimony and it seems to me that there is
no contradiction in my testimony. The point is that the reports I mentioned before concerned
the more important questions and, as a rule, dealt with devising methods of employing
bacteriological weapons, or other more urgent questions. Such reports were sent to the centre
by the Kwantung Army Headquarters. Reports dealing with the solution of various particular
problems, such as the study of the effectiveness of one or another type of bacteriological
weapon were sent by the command of Detachment 731 direct, either to the Imperial
Headquarters, to the Ministry for War, or to the Military Medical Academy, depending on
their contents.

. . . Question: How was the work of devising and producing bacteriological weapons
financed?

Answer: The work of devising and producing bacteriological weapons was financed by the
Japanese Ministry for War through the Kwantung Army Headquarters. I have no detailed
information about the amounts and methods of financing this work.

Question: Why were detachments 731 and 100, and their branches, posted in close
propinquity to the frontier of the Soviet Union?

Answer: Nobody gave me any special explanation of this, but my own personal opinion is
that it was done in order most conveniently and quickly to employ bacteriological weapons
against the Soviet Union.

Question: How was it proposed to use bacteriological weapons against England, the U.S.A.
and other countries?

Answer: I think bacteriological weapons would have been used against the U.S.A.,
England and other countries if the Soviet Union had not taken action against Japan. The
Soviet Union's entry into the war against Japan, and the swift advance of the Soviet Army
into the heart of Manchuria, deprived us of the possibility of employing the bacteriological
weapon against the U.S.S.R. and other countries. . . .

Yamada

INTERROGATORS

Military Prosecutor, Member of the staff

Lieutenant Colonel of the Office of the Ministry

of Jurisprudence BAZENKO for Internal Affairs

for the Khabarovsk Territory, Captain GOIKHMAN

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