Page 28 - Unit 731

From Shirō Ishii’s point of view, if Yersinia pestis were used as an offensive weapon, it would create massive lethality, which could even wipe out the
entire human race. Thus, Yersinia pestis was the first choice of biological weaponry for Unit 731. He dreamed to make this insane idea a reality.
Enlistment

Shirō Ishii did not have to wait for too long to see his dream come true. In 1930, he entered the Army Military Hospital as an instructor, a position he held
until he passed away. In 1932, while there, Ishii invented a water filter that held a national invention patent and was widely used in the Japanese Army. In
1932, he was promoted to major army surgeon, and on 1 August 1935, he started duty as lieutenant-colonel. Unit 731 was established on 25 June 1936, his
forty-fourth birthday.
On 1 March 1938, Ishii was promoted to colonel army surgeon and was awarded imperial recognition of Shōrokui kunshōdō kūshōkyū (正六位勳四等
功四級) along with core members of the early Unit 731, including Major Army Surgeon Ren Watanabe (渡辺廉) and Captain Army Surgeon Yoshitaka
Sasaki (佐佐木義孝), on 5 August 1939.
On 1 March 1941, Ishii was promoted to major general army surgeon, and on 1 August 1942, he was sent to Northern China to be first captain army
surgeon, with the assistance of Masaji Kitano (北野政次) as vice-captain army surgeon. Ishii retuned to Unit 731 on 1 March 1945 and was promoted to
lieutenant-general army surgeon.
Three days before Emperor Hirohito announced Japan’s surrender, Ishii sneaked back to Japan from Harbin on 12 August 1945 and a year later was
investigated by Arvo T. Thompson, Norbery H. Fell, Murray Sanders, and other US military officers. By providing the US Army with abundant documents
and data regarding biological warfare and human experimentation, these Japanese war criminals escaped their war crimes trials.
Doctor Who Met Shirō Ishii: Michinobu Haga
The fifteen-member Japan Christian Medical Association visited our International Research Center of Unit 731 on 8 June 2015. The Center held a small-
scale seminar for the group. One member, Dr Michinobu Haga, born in Changchun, China, in 1933, worked at the Kokuritsu Tokyo Daiichi Byōin (First
National Hospital of Tokyo) in 1959, where he first met Shirō Ishii.
At the seminar, Haga revealed:

I met Shirō Ishii at the hospital [First National Hospital of Tokyo] during autumn. Shirō Ishii stayed at the single ward. He was seriously ill. The nurses and everyone who came to visit him called him
Ishii Kakka [Your Excellency]. We had a brief conversation. I told Ishii that I was born in Manchuria and stayed there for a while before I returned to Japan. Shirō Ishii replied to me that ‘it should be
a tough experience’ and so on. It was like a day-to-day conversation.
Before Shirō Ishii died, people around him were still calling him Kakka, something considered unusual today.
Haga met Ishii the autumn before Ishii died of throat cancer. Fukiko Aoki (青木富貴子) wrote in her book 731: ‘Shirō Ishii was a pedantic, posturing
and talkative officer who was able to fool the Military Headquarters of Japan. Because of surgery, however, he lost his voice, and died soon. What a
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mockery for him!’ Shirō Ishii had funeral services at both the Buddhist temple Gekkeiji (月桂寺) in Tokyo and his hometown Kamo. Ishii’s successor,
Masaji Kitano, organised the memorial services.
The Successor: Professor, Doctor and Lieutenant General Masaji Kitano

Biography of Masaji Kitano
Masaji Kitano was born in Hyogo prefecture, Japan, on 14 July 1894. He graduated from the School of Medicine at Tokyo Imperial University on 26
November 1920 and became a second-class army surgeon on 7 March 1921. From 1 April 1923 to 1 March 1925, he studied infectious disease, especially
intestinal perforation and shigella, at the graduate school of Tokyo Imperial University.
On 13 November 1923, Kitano was promoted to first-class army surgeon. On 1 April 1925, Kitano withdrew from graduate school and obtained his
doctoral degree in medicine from Tokyo Imperial University, where his dissertation was titled ‘Experimental research on seronegative intestine perforation
and paratyphoid fever’. On 1 August 1929, he was promoted to Santō guni sei (chief third-class army surgeon).
In August 1932, Kitano served at the First Army School and held a teaching position at the Medical Department of the Ministry of War of Japan. From
12 January to 11 September 1933, he made visits to Europe and the United States for research. He received a medal from the Emperor of Manchukuo for
his contribution to its establishment. He was then promoted to Nitō guni sei (chief second-class army surgeon) on 1 August 1935. The following year,
Kitano worked at the headquarters of the Kanto Army as a professor of microbiology at Manchukuo Medical University (see Fig. 5).
Army Surgeon to University Professor: Tokyo to Changchun
Before moving to Changchun to become professor of microbiology at the Manchukuo Medical University, Masaji Kitano was an army surgeon. To transfer
his profession from that to professor in Manchukuo was a complicated process. The CEO of South Manchuria Railways Co., Yōsuke Matsuoka (松岡洋
右), submitted a report, ‘About application for recruitment of full-time professor’, to the Minister of the Army Terauchi Hisaichi (寺内 寿一) on 30 June
1936. The report stated: ‘Nitō guni sei Masaji Kitano is suitable for the post of professor at Manchukuo Medical University. Therefore, according to the
following requirements, now we hire him at the University to be a full-time professor’.
As Kitano was a Nitō guni sei at the time, Matsuoka offered him ￥ 3,000 per year as salary, with an allowance and bonus worth 40 per cent and 45 per
cent of the salary, and housing allowance that was less than 40 per cent of the salary for his duty as professor in Manchukuo Medical University, which
made his total yearly salary around 6,750 YEN. According to Bukka no sesō 100nen (100 Years of the Situation of Commodity Prices) by Jirō Iwazaki (岩
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崎爾郎), the price of rice was ￥ 0.24 per kilogram in 1935. In other words, Kitano’s annual salary could purchase 281,215 kilograms of rice, enough for
a family of four for thirty-eight years.
On 20 August, Minister of the Army Terauchi Hisaichi submitted the application to Prime Minister Hirota Kōki. The next day, it was approved and
Kitano succeeded to the position at Manchukuo Medical University.
Research Papers of Masaji Kitano
The Japanese Association of Medicinal Sciences held an academic conference for bacteriologists featuring group photographs taken in front of the famous
Yasuda Auditorium at the Tokyo Imperial University. In this photograph, Shirō Ishii is fifth from left in the front row, fourth from right in the same row is
Masaji Kitano. It is the only photo of the two that we have found. In contrast with the scientists, they are in military uniform and hold sabres. It is uncertain
whether Ishii and Kitano participated in the conference as doctors, scholars, professors, military, or other roles (see Fig. 6).
As shown below, we have found that Kitano wrote more than thirty research papers between 1931 and 1939 in Gunidan zasshi (Army Surgeon