Page 29 - Unit 731 Testimony

to take a long way around to get to their destinations. Trains passing by on
rails about a kilometer away were required to have their shades drawn.

One rumor told of a young boy who was curious about the Fortress and
went out to have a look. His body was found the next day; he had been
killed by gunfire. But even walls and guns could not keep rumors of cries of
pain and anguish inside the Fortress from circulating through the village.
And, by 1936, it was well known among the Chinese that this was not just a
prison, but a production facility for bacteria, and a murder shop.

Some of the information on the facilities came from a shop owner in
the area who went into the buildings after the Japanese had abandoned
them. He described about thirty cells, and it seems that there were always

about five to six hundred prisoners being held at any given time: the facility
had the capacity to hold about one thousand. Another Chinese from the
region was interviewed in more recent years about the Fortress:

We heard rumors of people having blood drawn in there, but we never
went near the place. We were too afraid.
When construction started, there were about forty houses in our

village, and a lot of people were driven out. About one person from
each home was taken to work on the construction. People were
gathered from villages from all around here, maybe about a thousand
people in all.

The only thing we worked on were the surrounding wall and the
earthen walls. The Chinese that worked on the buildings were brought
in from somewhere, but we didn't know where. After everything was
finished, those people were killed.

The prisoners wore leg shackles and sometimes hand shackles, as well.
They were given a substantial diet, their staples being rice or wheat, with
meat or fish and sufficient vegetables, and at times even liquor. The purpose

was to keep them in a normal state of health to yield useful data when they
were subjected to the tests. One of these tests consisted of taking blood
samples. At least five hundred cubic centimeters was drawn at two- to
three-day intervals. Some of the victims became progressively debilitated
and wasted. Still, the blood drainage continued. Careful records were kept,
and these experiments smack more of a combination of professional

curiosity than of actual science: a simple, childlike curiosity to see how far