Page 175 - Unit 731 Testimony

employees gather for instructions on how to drink a preventive medicine.
Twelve people died, and the police went searching for the culprit.

It was natural that Unit 731 should fall under the eyes of investigators.
Detectives came to my place of work and told me, "You were in Unit 731.
Your superior officers gave you potassium cyanide to drink in case you
were captured by the Russians or Americans." I was shocked. I said I didn't
know anything about it and tried to brush it off. From then on, the
detectives kept coming back and talking to my superiors. Talk spread

around my workplace that I was a war criminal, and that I did not have the
right to work in a public organization. I started getting dirty looks. I quit the
national railways and wandered around for a while. Then, in September
1951, the peace treaty was signed in San Francisco, and the postwar period
became more settled. I didn't think anybody would be bad-mouthing me any
more, so I decided to go into business for myself and have continued that

way ever since.

Soldier attached to Unit 731 (Ohara Takeyoshi)

I joined the cavalry in my home prefecture in 1939. In April of that
year, I was stationed in Northeast China, then in March 1942, I was
transferred to Unit 731. I did not know anything about that unit. My orders
were for transfer to the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit
Headquarters. In time, I found out what Unit 731 really was.

My first duty was taking care of domesticated animals, such as sheep,
goats, horses, and cows. I assisted in researching the diseases that affect
these animals.

At Anda, I saw tests in which maruta were tied to crosses in a large
circle, as planes flew over and dropped bacteriological bombs in the area
surrounded by the crosses. Their legs were chained, and their bodies were
tied tightly; we observed the tests from a distance of about two hundred
meters.

I had the job of cleaning up and disinfecting after the experiments, and
gathering debris lying around. We wore special clothes that had a zipper in
front and covered us from head to toe. We wore gas masks, rubber boots,