Page 186 - Unit 731 Testimony

The method we decided on was another field operation. We established
a circle thirty-two kilometers in diameter encompassing entire villages and
settlements. We then lined the circumference with several tens of thousands

of soldiers. The troops started moving into the circle, pressing everyone in
toward the center, just as if we were on a rabbit hunt. We had a tank corps
in reserve in case a settlement put up strong resistance. When there was a
village or settlement up ahead, I would fire off a machine gun, and that
would scare everyone away from us and into the center. Whenever we
could, we captured Chinese and handed them over to the kenpeitai officers.
They would look the men over, pick out those who seemed able to do

physical labor, tie their hands behind them, and then string them together
like beads. We conducted this encircling operation three different times
through the fields and mountains of the Shantung Peninsula, and rounded
up some eight thousand Chinese. These records are in the archives of
Japan's Self-Defense Agency in Tokyo.

In other operations, acting on orders from the commander of the army,
we would pick out villagers at random—both old and young—and torture
them to get information on where arms were hidden or being made. Then,
we would kill them.

We also worked with Unit 731. Whenever we were out on an operation
and an infectious disease broke out in a village, we would call off the
operation, return to our base immediately, and receive inoculations. At
times, we went into areas where cholera had broken out. We had practiced
for a week beforehand how to disinfect ourselves as quickly as possible

after being exposed in such areas. First, we would disinfect ourselves, then
the weapons and the horses. We also disinfected our food. After these
training sessions, we worked in cholera-spreading operations.
Cholera germs were introduced into the targeted area. We would first
determine that the disease had actually broken out, and then move in.

Whenever the Japanese army moved in, the Chinese would always run
away. As they did, they spread the disease, and the cholera infected one
person after the other and spread the disease, according to our plan. The
dead and those who couldn't move were lying all around. It was summer,
and they were black with flies. It was a gruesome sight. We continued this

operation for about two weeks, and the success reports on the mission stated
that about twenty thousand Chinese died from cholera. There were 1,200
men in our operation, and among these two hundred were identified as