Page 26 - Unit 731

The Seikonkai, the first comrade association of Unit 731, was founded on 15 August 1955, the tenth anniversary of the surrender of Japan. Its chairperson
was Shigeo Suzuki. This was the beginning of large-scale activities held by military surgeons who had avoided prosecution. Later, they built the Seikontō
at the Tama Cemetery, Tokyo.
On 15 November 1957, the comrade association published an internal newsletter, Bōtomo. Bōtomokai was founded in front of the Seikontō on 17
August 1958, and held its second meeting in Ōtsu City, Shiga Prefecture, on 9 August 1959 and a third meeting on 12 August 1960. In the 1970s, none of
the comrade associations were named after Unit 731, and held meetings until 5 September 1981.
Seiichi Morimura described the first meeting of a comrade association in the name of Unit 731. The invitation card read: ‘Date and time: 3 p.m., 5
September 1981 (Showa 56) (Sat) (please be punctual); Venue: Satoyamabe Utsukusigahara Hotel, Matsumoto, Shinsyu; Participation fee: 8,000 Japanese
Yen. Take a taxi at Matsumoto Station to Satoyamabe Utsukusigahara Hotel’.
Nineteen people from Nagano, Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa, and Gunma joined this meeting held in a banquet hall, where a large Japanese national flag
was hoisted and a brush calligraphy of ‘the first comrade association of Unit 731 in Manchuria, the Kwantung Army’ was displayed. At the opening,
everyone stood in silence for the war dead, ‘for the God of Army, Lt-General Shirō Ishii and officials of Unit 731’.
At the meeting, praise for militarism was highly articulated within a nostalgic atmosphere. One member said: ‘It doesn’t matter if others know we were
members of Unit 731. It is not scary. We were fighting for our nation in those years’. Kawashima Kiyoshi, General Affairs Minister of Unit 731, one of the
core members standing trial in Khabarovsk, also sent a congratulatory message. From his message, it is believed that other Unit 731 members might have
been invited to the meeting, but they did not attend. Afterwards, one Unit 731 member said: ‘… nowadays, who will follow Hinomaru and the God of
Army? Very few people join this kind of comrade association. We come here not for any war again. Unit 731 is already buried in history, and [we] cannot
let the God of Army revive again’.