Page 135 - Unit 731 Testimony

was sweet, like jelly, and we would eat it. The officer would scream at us,
"If you eat that, you'll die."

During the education period, we followed orders. They told us,
"Always keep your gas mask with you." Sometimes we could go into town
for the night. They'd take us in a truck, we'd go to the movies and have fun
in town, then the truck would pick us up again and take us back to the unit.

Ishii, the unit leader, was an exalted man—he was higher than the
emperor. I thought that he was a great man because of the water filtration
system he had invented. I almost cried from appreciation.

Sometimes I drove truckloads of Chinese for tests. Around May 1941
—we were still wearing winter uniforms—we were told to load some
Chinese prisoners into a truck. There was just a mat rush on the floor of the
truck. We had guns, but I don't think they were loaded. The newest
members of our group had less than half a year of service.

The officers told us where to take the Chinese. We pulled the canopy
over the back of the truck and started out. There were between twenty and
thirty of them. We drove for about three or four hours and we were told to
stop and unload the Chinese. We were in an open plain; there was nothing
around. The interpreter told the Chinese, "Go!" and they were happy to be

running around. They were all men, all built better than we were, some in
good clothing with shoes, others in sandals. Some were coal carriers, still
black with coal dust the way they had been when they were picked up.
Others were dirty with the soil of whatever work they were doing.
The truck went back empty. A couple of civilian employees and four

or five soldiers stayed. A few days later, I carried another load of about the
same number of people out there to the same place. The ones we had
brought before were still there, lying huddled together on the ground in
groups of five or six, blue with cold, begging, "Help . . . help." So we
carried them by hand back to the truck. When we got back to the unit, we
were ordered back to the barracks. That was the only time I ever carried

anyone in such bad shape, but I made three or four trips out to the plain
carrying prisoners. They were strong and healthy when we hauled them out
there, but later they were shaking, screaming: "My stomach hurts!"; "I'm
finished!": "I'm dying!"

I didn't know whether they had been infected by our bacteria or what. I
wasn't even sure if they were prisoners. I had not yet heard that word