Page 170 - Unit 731 Testimony

There were other mines in different parts of Japan, also, where such
people were forced to work on meager rations. Many of them died from
malnutrition. The people that we captured and sent off to be laborers were

among them.
That was not the only destination for the prisoners we took. Other
people giving testimony at this exhibition have spoken of the maruta, and
one person who testified here earlier mentioned that an unusually high
percentage of the Chinese maruta came from Shantung Province. That large

number from Shantung Province is because of the prisoners that we took
and sent to Unit 731 for their experimentation.
Another time, we took eight prisoners who had raised a white flag and

surrendered. We were told to take them to a farm and wait there. I was
wondering how we were going to transport them, when night came and we
received orders to kill them. They were sitting on the ground, and the young
soldiers like myself were ordered to bayonet them from the front while the
experienced soldiers held the prisoners' shoulders from behind. After we
killed them, we just left them there on the ground and went back to the
battlefront. We didn't even dig holes.

This was one example of the conduct of the Japanese army, and it was
absolutely against international law.

Soldier stationed at Pingfang (Shinohara Tsuruo)

Unit 731 was an underground organization. We were told to take the
secret to the grave with us, and many people did adhere to the order for
years after the war. But now, thanks to these times of peace, those who

believed in the homeland and sacrificed themselves for it should not be
forgotten. Truth is often recorded by being handed down verbally, and I
believe that we cannot leave a blank space in history. For that reason, I
summon up the courage to stand before you now to tell the truth about what
I saw at Unit 731.

In December 1944, I was nineteen years old and working in Manchuria
for the South Manchuria Railway Company, when an order for mobilization
came from the Kwantung Army. Early the following year, I received orders