Page 149 - Unit 731 Testimony

made us burn everything, even photos of our families that we had
carried with us. So we don't remember names or faces.

Nurse attached to Unit 731 (Akama Masako)

[Akama went to Unit 731 as a nurse attached to the maternity section. Her
husband and uncle were also in the unit, and her cousin worked in the
boiler room, making four family members connected with 731.

She went back to China in recent years to apologize for the deeds of
Unit 731. She met with the wife of a man who had been tortured and then
sent to Unit 731, where he was sacrificed in the experiments. His name was

found in old municipal records, and his crime was listed as transmitting
anti-occupation information by wireless radio.
At her appearance before some one thousand people in Takatsuki,
Osaka Prefecture, Akama spoke with difficulty, the result of advanced age
and poor physical condition. She advised her listeners that this was the last

time she would appear before an audience.]
With the syphilitic mothers, the doctor in charge of our team delivered
the maruta babies himself instead of having the nurses do it, as would
normally be the case. At that time, he would order me to stop the blood
flow from the mother to the baby. The doctor would take a sample of the

blood, then I would let small quantities of blood flow intermittently, as he
took successive samples. The test tubes were all lined up on the shelf. He
was checking to determine the intensity of the syphilis transmitted from
mother to child, and the progression of the disease from the time of birth.

A researcher came running in, screaming that some maruta had
escaped. They were caught by the Special Forces. That was the team under
Ishii Shiro's brother, Ishii Takeo. Only someone who could be trusted was
admitted to that team. They shot the escapees.

When it came time to evacuate, we got into a train and left the unit

headquarters. It was a long train, maybe twenty or thirty cars. A soldier
came running to me and said that a baby was going to be born in a freight
car at the end of the train. We ran back through the cars. The wife of one of