Page 90 - MaterialsTrial-JapaneseArmy-1950

Answer: The preparations for bacteriological warfare against the Soviet Union were
expressed in the fact that Detachment 731 studied methods of employing the germs of plague,
anthrax, cholera, typhoid and other diseases; for this purpose Detachment 731 had special
institutions where experiments were conducted and germs were cultivated. Detachment 731
also had branches, about which I testified on October 27, 1949. What the branches of
Detachment 731 engaged in is unknown to me.

Question: What category of persons were used as experimentees?

Answer: From the words of Colonel Tamura I know that Detachment 731 conducted
experiments on living people from among soldiers and partisans of the Chinese People's
Revolutionary Army.

Question: How do you know that the Ishii Detachment conducted research in the
development and preparation of germs?

Answer: In August 1943, while taking over from the former Chief of the Operations
Division of the Kwantung Army Headquarters, Major General Tamura Yoshitomi, I learned
from him that the Ishii Detachment conducted research in developing bacteriological
weapons and methods of employing them. In the summer of 1944, I do not remember the
exact month, a report made by my subordinate, staff officer Lieutenant Colonel Miyata,
whom at the order of Chief of Staff Lieutenant General Kasahara Yukio I personally had sent
to the Ishii Detachment to check upon the state of the production of special bombs charged
with epidemic germs, fully convinced me that Detachment 731 occupied itself with these
matters. Besides this, I knew about the manufacture of bacteriological weapons in
Detachment 731 from the reports that came in addressed to the Commanderin-Chief of the
Kwantung Army, about which reports I shall speak later.

Question: Could Detachment 731, as it was in 1945, supply the Kwantung Army with
sufficient bacteriological weapons? •

Answer: On the basis of materials submitted to the Operations Division of the Kwantung
Army Headquarters, and the report by Lieutenant Colonel Miyata, in 1945 Detachment 731
was able to produce a mass quantity of various epidemic germs sufficient for employment as
bacteriological weapons. By that time intensive work was being carried out to develop special
bombs as the most effective method of employing bacteriological weapons.

Question: Did you, in your strategical plans, provide for the employment of bacteriological
weapons in a war against the Soviet Union?

Answer: In drawing up the operations and strategical plans, the employment of
bacteriological weapons was not provided for, but in the event instructions came from
Imperial Headquarters to use bacteriological weapons in a war against the U.S.S.R., the
bacteriological weapons at hand would have been used, for the Ishii Detachment was ready
for this.

Question: How, practically, was it intended to use germs in a war against the U.S.S.R.?

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