Page 164 - Unit 731 Testimony

during the time that I was there. They said that they had not seen their faces
in a mirror since being captured, and they begged me to get them one. I
sneaked a mirror to them and told them to be careful that the kenpeitai or

the jail guards didn't see it.

Youth Corps member attached to Unit 731

(Ogasawra Akira)

I joined the Youth Corps in 1943, on April 15. I was excited about
airplanes, and I heard that if we went to the Kwantung Army headquarters
we'd get to go up in a plane. I did not join Unit 731 from hearing about it
and deciding to join. In May 1938, the year after the SinoJapanese War
started, my eldest brother was killed in action in Xuzhou. My school
teacher told me "Go get your brother's enemy. You've got to go kill the
Chinks!"

I took the exam for the Youth Air Corps School and passed. One week
later I was contacted and told to report to the kenpeitai office in
Shimonoseki. They called us together and the officer in charge said "All

those who want to ride in a plane in the Kwantung Army, raise your hands."
Some of us did, and then we were told to contact our families and advise
them that we'd be leaving.
I thought the Kwantung Army meant the Tokyo area. [In Japan, a term
using the same characters refers to the Tokyo-Yokohama area; Japanese

used a term with those characters to refer to the eastern region of China.]
Two or three hours later, we left the port of Shimonoseki. The next morning
we were docking in Pusan, though I had no idea where we were. I looked
out and thought it strange that there were so many people wearing Korean-
style clothes. From the ship, we were taken to a train, and we started out

toward Manchuria.
After we passed through Seoul, a lot of women boarded. Some of the
fellows started teasing and making jokes about them, and they shot back,
"We're going to work for the same Japanese army as you and you're making
fun of us?" The sergeant in charge of our group told us that they were going

to Manchuria to become comfort women, and we shouldn't fight with them.