Page 153 - Unit 731 Testimony

The American navy was attacked at Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese
thought it was a victorious strike. Yet, within two years, America had built
up its naval strength again. America is a machine society. But

bacteriological warfare does not rely on machinery. So Ishii's idea was to
kill all the attacking Russians with disease. Once killed, troops are not
rebuilt like machinery. The Japanese army promised Chinese children
money for bringing in rats, but later gave them a pencil for every rat. The
end purpose of all this effort was war. In war, the side who kills more
people wins. Bacteria can kill on a large scale, so Ishii pressed this forward.

Former kenpeitai buddies and I used to meet to drink, and we would
talk about the war days. But nobody ever spoke about sending people to
Unit 731. And of course the children were never told. I knew that what we
did was wrong and did not want to tell my family about it. Then, one day, I
called my family together—children and grandchildren—and told them that

I was going to testify about what I did during the war. The was the first time
I said anything about it. Overcoming my reluctance to speak that first time
made it possible for me to tell my story repeatedly.
I was reading the impressions written down by visitors to one of these

Unit 731 exhibits. A thirteen-year-old girl wrote, "I apologize for the people
killed by the Japanese."
And a nineteen-year-old boy wrote, "The government spends all its
time talking about low-level matters. If we keep going this way, the same

situation will happen again."
People criticize the youth of today for spending their time reading
comic books and watching TV; grownups accuse them of not knowing
what's going on in the world. But, they are aware. They know what's going

on. And the grownups had better be aware, also.
We kenpeitai men sent three thousand people to their deaths in Unit
731. I pray for the repose of their souls.

Army doctor (Yuasa Ken)

[This is a "composite" speech edited from several different talks given by
the speaker. Yuasa spoke at several exhibitions around Japan in 1993 and