Page 81 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

. . . The apparatus for breeding fleas as carriers of epidemic diseases consisted of the
following: in the detachment's 2nd Division there were specially-equipped premises capable
of housing approximately 4,500 incubators. Three or four white mice were put through each
incubator in the course of a month; these mice were held in the incubator by means of a
special attachment device. There was a nutritive medium and several kinds of fleas in the
incubator. The incubation period lasted three to four months, in the course of which each
incubator yielded about ten grams of fleas. Thus, in three to four months the detachment bred
about 45 kilograms of fleas suitable for infection with plague.

I request it to be noted that the figures relating to the breeding of fleas are approximate,
since I did not work in the 2nd Division.

When the detachment's work was planned, a steady increase in the productive capacity for
cultivating bacteria and breeding fleas was provided for. Serious attention was paid to the
work of the detachment by the Japanese General Staff.

I recall that in June 1941, upon his return from Tokyo, General Ishii assembled all the
divisional chiefs of the detachment in his office and informed us that while in the Japanese
General Staff he had reported that Detachment 731 had successfully worked out a method for
employing plague-infected fleas as a bacteriological weapon, and that these achievements
made possible their practical application for military purposes on a wide scale.

Ishii told us that members of the General Staff had given a high appraisal of the
detachment's work and had issued instructions to pay special attention to the perfection and
further development of bacteriological means of warfare. After giving us this information,
General Ishii called upon usto workstill more intensively to increase the detachment's flea-
breeding productivity to a still larger amount. Ishii noted that the detachment had managed, in
the most successful cases, to bring the breeding of fleas up to 60 kilograms in three to four
months, but now the amount had to be increased to 200 kilograms for the same period.
General Ishii explained to us that all these measures for expanding production of the
bacteriological weapon were necessitated by the altered international situation, that is, by the
war Germany had begun on the Soviet Union, and by the introduction into the Kwantung
Army of the "Kan-Toku-En" Plan, which provided for the preparation of military measures
against the U.S.S.R., and hence our army had to have the bacteriological weapon in readiness,
to be able to employ it against the U.S.S.R. at the required moment.

At this conference, Oota, Chief of the 2nd Division, and Ootani, Chief of the Materials
Division, advanced practical suggestions concerning expansion of the production of
bacteriological means of warfare and investigation into the possibilities of procuring white
mice in Manchuria in place of those hitherto received from Japan. . . .

. . . For the purpose of the fullest possible study of bacteria on human beings and the
swiftest development of methods of preparing the bacteriological weapon for employment in
war at the required moment, Detachment 731 experimented widely in the action of all lethal
bacteria on human beings. . A

From 500 to 600 prisoners were consigned to Detachment 731 annually. I myself saw

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