Page 8 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

This division had high-capacity equipment, divided into two sections, each of which could
produce germs independently. The main equipment of the first section consisted of four
boilers, each of one-ton capacity, for the preparation of the culture medium for the bacteria,
and 14 autoclaves for sterilizing the medium, each 3 metres long and 1.5 metres in diameter.
Each autoclave could hold 30 cultivators of a special design invented by Ishii, the Chief of
Detachment 731. This first section had two cooling chambers for the medium, each of which
could hold 100 cultivators simultaneously. This section also had five thermostats with a total
capacity of 620 Ishii cultivators.

The second section had two boilers of two-ton capacity each, eight autoclaves, each
capable of containing 60 cultivators, and other equipment.

The division also had a special refrigerator for preserving the finished "product."

Experts have calculated, on the basis of the available data regarding the capacity of its
main items of germ-breeding equipment, that Detachment 731 alone was capable of breeding,
in the course of one production cycle, lasting only a few days, no less than 30,000,000 billion
microbes. The experts stress that this is an extraordinarily large quantity of microbes to be
produced in such a space of time.

This intensive rate of production led the personnel of detachments 731 and 100 to measure
the quantity of bacteria they bred in terms of kilograms. That explains why the accused in
their testimony give bacteria quantities in kilograms, this referring to the weight of the thick,
creamy bacteria mass skimmed directly from the surface of the culture medium.

For instance, describing the productive capacity of Detachment 731, the accused
Kawashima stated:

". . . With the available equipment and its rate

of output, the Production Division . . . could manufacture

as much as 300 kilograms of plague bacteria monthly."

(Vol. 3, p. 317.)

Another accused, Karasawa, gave similar testimony: ". . . The monthly output of the germ-
producing

division could be raised ... if all its equipment were

fully operated ... to about 300 kilograms of plague

bacteria." (Vol. 4, p. 286.)

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