Page 167 - Unit 731 Testimony

[Tomioka served as a member on the Central Planning Committee for the
Unit 731 Exhibition.]

In April 1940, I took the exam for the Hygiene Corps, and in
December of that year I reported to my unit. We boarded a ship for China,
where we began a four-month training period.
The object of training was to teach young people to be soldiers in the

shortest possible time, and in order to do so, the men in charge hit the new
recruits. There was not one day when we were not hit. Open-handed
slapping does not hurt much, so they used fists. Sometimes, they would use
the soles of tabi [Japanese-style footwear] so that the rubber treads would
leave their marks on our faces. At times, they would use a belt, which was a

little better; but sometimes they would use the buckle, and it would leave
welts from the ear to the neck. Other times, they would use army boots,
which have rivets on the soles. That would really knock you down.
So, we went from one day to the next getting hit as part of our training.
Why did we get hit? Perhaps our clothes were dirty. Perhaps our shoes had

not been properly taken care of. Perhaps we had dust on our rifles. We got
hit every day. We had to wash the officers' underwear, and if we didn't do it
right we'd get hit. If one person did something wrong, it was considered
everybody's responsibility, so they would make us pair off facing each
other, and we'd have to slap each other's faces. If we didn't slap hard
enough, we'd get hit.

In a different kind of punishment, we'd have to hold ourselves up
between two desks—one hand on each desk with our feet off the ground—
then pedal as if in a bicycle race. Or, if we slipped up on something, they
would make us display our shame to everybody by walking around to the

different teams with a shoe in our mouths.
There was one type of rifle called a Type 38. It had the emperor's
chrysanthemum crest on the front end. We were taught that each rifle was
lent to us by the emperor, and that we had to treat it with respect. If we

handled it wrong, or in a manner that was not befitting its status, we were
made to stand with the rifle at present arms, holding it with arms stretched
out front, at shoulder height. We would have to stay that way for one or two
hours, until given the order to put our arms down. That was rough; the rifle
weighed about three kilograms.