Page 54 - Unit 731

On 4 April 1947, Cdr Alden Waitt of the US Biological Warfare Unit sent Norbert Fell to Tokyo to investigate Japanese biological warfare. Fell was an
expert in microbiology and epidemiology, a graduate of the University of Chicago, and head of the plant laboratory at the Detrick military base.
Interrogation by United States Department of Defense
Fell arrived in Tokyo on 13 April 1947 and interrogated members of Unit 731 previously investigated by Sanders and Thompson. Fell received a telegram
from United State Department of Defense on 15 May 1947 that held questions from Dr Norman to Fell:

Part 1: What were the main crops considered by the Japanese group concerned with crop destruction?
Part 2: What plant diseases, organisms, or insects were studied?
Part 3: Was the intent to attack by sabotage or by direct application of the agent to the crop by airplane?
Part 4: Where was the laboratory work carried out? What sort of facilities did the laboratories have?
Part 5: Who were the chief technical people involved, and what positions had they held previously?
Part 6: Were field trials carried out? On a small plot basis or on a large scale? Were any of these in isolated areas or on islands?
Part 7: How was it proposed to distribute the agents for crops? By dropping test tube cultures, or use of bombs or sprays from airplanes? If either of the latter, what kind of equipment was
developed?
Part 8: Was attention given to defensive measures, such as spraying of crops that had previously been treated?
Part 9: Were any experiments carried out on effects on crops of chemicals such as oil, war gases, or poisons or weed killers?
Part 10: Were experiments carried out on burning of crops or vegetation by incendiaries and/or spraying or treating?
Part 11: Were there any gardens or field plots at or near the BW installation? How big were they? Were they isolated from other farms? What crops were growing?
Part 12: Did you see men working in the plots, spraying or dusting the plants? Did any of the crops die or change color? Did airplanes fly over them at low altitude?
Part 13: Do you know if grain or vegetables from these plots were fed to animals or men.
Part 14: Were there any agronomists, plant pathologists, botanists, crop breeders. Or entomologists on the technical staff of the BW installation? What sort of work were they doing?
Part 15: Were chemical weed killers in use in Japan before the war? If so, what substances were used? Were they available during the war?
Part 16: What crop diseases do you know of or can recognise? Do any of these cause series loses in the vicinity of the BW installation? 18
Fell interrogated Shirō Ishii, Tomohisa Masuda, Junichi Kaneko, Ryoichi Naito, Wakamatsu Arijirou, and a few others and included the transcript in ‘The
19
Latest Information on Japanese Biological Warfare Activity’, also known as ‘The Fell Report’, on 20 June 1947. This report is kept in the National
Archives in Maryland, US.
Chief Content of ‘The Fell Report’
According to the report, there was a special notice on ‘The Fell Report’:
Anyone who received this attachment must sign in the blank at left. Anyone who knows about the content of this attachment has to sign the blank on the right. Only the last person who receives this
attachment has the right to distribute this attachment when highly necessary. The person needs to keep or return the report and this attachment according to the regulation. This attachment must remain
with the report until this report is returned to the top-secret document keeper. According to Information Security Department document number 380–5 passage 26, this attachment needs to be
transferred by specially appointed respondent. When the attachment is unused, it should be kept in a safety box with three locks or similar security box. There should be a receipt during the postage
process [this attachment is equivalent to a receipt]. When the document is not in the post, it should be managed by top secret document keepers or top secret document assistants. The decryption of
documents is decided by The United States Department of Defense. The class of decryption is adjusted in every three years. Decryption will be released after 12 years. This document is currently
decrypted. 20
Human Experimentation: ‘The Fell Report’ recorded the result of human experimentation of anthrax, plague, typhoid fever, dysentery, cholera, and
glanders conducted by Unit 731. This comprises approximately 70 per cent of the report.
Plant Biological Warfare: ‘The Fell Report’ details information about plant biological warfare of Unit 731, as well as the relationship between plant
biological warfare and agronomists, biologists and entomologists. Information related to prevention and effects on humans and animals is also included in
the report.
Article by Shirō Ishii: According to ‘The Fell Report’, Ishii wrote an article about Japanese biological warfare’s entire scope, summarising his twenty
years of experiments on biological warfare, his ideas on the use of biological weapons and war strategy, and how the weapons function under different
environmental conditions, especially in extremely cold weather. Unfortunately, this report did not include the complete article, which certainly exists
somewhere in the US.
Barrage Balloons: ‘The Fell Report’ recorded information about barrage balloons invented by the Japanese for attacking the US from 1942 to 1945.
These barrage balloons were one weapon that bought threat and fear to the US. Unit 731 was involved in the research of barrage balloons and attempted to
use barrage balloons to spread biological threats and bacteria.
Fell stated in his report that most of the research conducted by the US Army at the Detrick base had also been researched by the Japanese.
Investigation by Hill and Victor
In October 1947, Dr Edwin V. Hill and Dr Joseph Victor were sent from the Detrick base to Japan to investigate Japanese biological warfare. Hill was
director of the experiment department at Detrick, and Victor was a pathologist. From 29 October to 25 November 1947, Hill and Victor interrogated Shirō
Ishii, Masaji Kitano, Tomohisa Masuda, and nineteen others. They released ‘Summary Report on B.W. Investigations’, also known as ‘Hill’s Report’,
based on their interrogation and submitted it to the US Department of Defense in December 1947.
The aim of ‘Hill’s Report’ was to fill in gaps left in earlier investigations by Sanders, Thompson, and Fell and to provide additional information about
Unit 731. At the conclusion, Hill wrote:
Evidence gathered in this investigation has greatly supplemented and amplified previous aspects of this field. It represents data which have been obtained by Japanese scientists at the expenditure of
many millions of dollars and years of work. Information has accrued with respect to human susceptibility to these diseases as indicated by specific infectious doses of bacteria. Such information could
not be obtained in our own laboratories because of scruples attached to human experimentation. These data were occurred with a total outlay of ￥250,000 to date, a more pittance by comparison with
the actual cost of the studies. 21
Secret Deal between the US and Japan

Telegrams between Washington and Tokyo
On 7 February 1947, the inspector of Soviet Union requested permission from the International Military Tribunal for the Far East to interrogate Shirō Ishii,
Hitoshi Kikuchi, and Masumi Ota. The Soviet attitude toward members of Unit 731 differed from that of the US.
Gen. Douglas MacArthur sent the following telegram to the Washington Joint Staff:
Request based on information alleged to have been obtained from unidentified prisoners of war who stated that experiments authorised and conducted by above three Japanese resulted in deaths of
2000 Chinese and Manchurians. Russians present request on their assumption that supplementary war crimes trials will be authorised by United States, but also admit interest in mass production of
typhus and cholera bacteria and typhus bearing fleas at PINGFAN said to have been described by prisoners of war to them. Opinion here that Russian not likely to obtain information form Japanese
not already known to United States and that United States might get some additional information from Russian line of questioning in monitored interrogations. 22