Page 158 - Unit 731 Testimony

Once, I instructed a hygiene specialist in anatomy. We had charts and
models, but I thought that actual experience would be faster. I contacted the
kenpeitai and received one person. I cut the belly and the chest. I explained

the intestines, the kidneys, the liver, and the stomach—I was doing hideous
things.
I also saw vivisections. Once I saw about forty doctors gathered. There
was a man bound and squatting. The guard asked the doctors, "Are you
ready?" and the prisoner was laid out and, without anesthetic, two cuts were

made down his belly. The victim made a few gasps—the dissection was a
botch—and he died soon. I saw four people dissected that way.
Once, at the Shanxi First Army Headquarters, there were some forty

army doctors gathered from base and field hospitals. There was a lecture on
military medicine, and afterward we were led to the prison cells. There
were two Chinese in a cell. The jailer took out his pistol and fired two shots
into each of their bellies. One of them was vivisected right there in the
room. There was no anesthesia. While this was going on I heard four more
shots fired. That meant two more people. Our object was to keep the person
alive until the bullets were removed. Since we neither tried to administer

ether nor stop the flow of blood, the men died soon.
At Unit 731, the special team carried out tests with poisons at the ends
of prison blocks 1 and 2. There was an iron door, and even unit members
needed permission to enter here. The special team members startled me

when I first saw their unusual manner of dress. They wore white coverall
suits, army hats, rubber boots, and pistols strapped to their sides. They first
came here to supervise the preliminary construction work of the facilities,
then later became the Special Team. They even had their own quarters.
They were all from around Ishii's hometown, and the leader was Ishii
Shiro's elder brother.

A secret order came to the hospitals in northern China: "The war is not
going well. Perform vivisections!" Thousands, or tens of thousands, of
doctors used live subjects for dissection practice and research. What are
those people doing now? Among the sixty or seventy thousand Japanese

who went to China, forty to fifty thousand are still alive in Japan. There
may be some feeling of shame, but most have forgotten. Soldiers went to
the comfort women, and they raped them. Then, the next day, they would
regain their strength to attack the Chinese. That's all forgotten in the Japan