Page 27 - Unit 731 Testimony

2

A New Type of Warfare

The Fortress/Bacteria Factory

The Manchurian city of Harbin was a railroad hub, and a multicultural,
multiracial center of commerce, art, and music. It had been developed by
the Russians just a few years before the Russo-Japanese War broke out.

White Russians who had fled their country settled in Harbin. They were not
well off, but at least they were not living in Russia, which seemed more
important. Many of the women were beautiful, and a lack of other
employment opportunities made them turn to prostitution. The racial and
cultural mix made Harbin a fascinating city.

In 1932, a few months after Japanese troops moved into Harbin, Ishii
and his associates followed them. Meanwhile, Japanese faced numerically
superior Soviet troops along the Soviet-Manchurian border. An armed clash
was expected, and Ishii planned to use his specialty to overcome his side's
disadvantage.

Ishii's operations started out in Harbin with a few hundred men, but too
many eyes in an urban center were not what he and his confederates
wanted. To maintain their facade of respectability, they had the Harbin
facility concentrate on the socially accepted area of vaccines and other

"proper" medical research. Meanwhile, for the work they wanted kept
completely quiet, they soon found another place about one hundred
kilometers to the south. The ever-dependable and expanding South
Manchuria Railway provided a means of transporting equipment and, more
important, human lab materials.

The Japanese descended upon a poor neighborhood near an area
known as Beiyinhe. There were about three hundred homes and shops there,
with an extensive area of open land nearby to the south. Japanese troops
came in and told the village headman that everyone had to clear out in three
days; then Ishii and the army moved in. A large building of about one

hundred rooms was kept for quarters while the facilities were being set up,