Page 30 - Unit 731 Testimony

a human being can be squeezed of blood until death occurs. Not all were
drained to the point of death, though. Many were injected with poison when
they could no longer serve as lab materials. Sometimes, when a subject was

too weak to offer physical resistance, he would be killed with a blow to the
head with an axe. The brain might then be used for further research.
It is said that the life expectancy of prisoners at the Fortress was a
maximum of one month.

An earlier experiment tried to determine how long a person could live
on just water. Food was withheld from prisoners, and some were given only
ordinary water, while others received only distilled water. They were
observed as they wasted away and died.

By protecting its soldiers from disease in the Manchurian conflict
thirty years earlier, Japan had earned international admiration by
establishing itself as the world leader in military medicine. Now, the
direction into which it channeled its medical energies had changed, and its
ethics began to twist and mutate, as well. The leaders of Japan's military

during the days of the Russo-Japanese War would undoubtedly have been
appalled.

End of the Fortress

The escape from Zhongma Fortress in 1936 was a combination of
clever planning, daring, and coincidental help from a natural phenomenon.
It involved some forty people who had been imprisoned at Harbin, then
transferred to Zhongma for blood drawing.

A prisoner by the name of Li planned the jailbreak for the fifteenth day
of the eighth month, a time of festivals marking autumn on the lunar
calendar. The Japanese would be holding parties, and drinking, and
prisoners would also be given special treats. Li knew that the Japanese
guard would be bringing food and liquor, and after they were finished

eating, the prisoners would hand the eating utensils out through the prison
bars. Although the prisoners all had leg irons on, apparently their hands
were free. When the utensils were handed back to the guard, Li grabbed his
hand, dropped him with a blow to the head, grabbed the keys from around
his waist, and opened the cells. Those who could, joined in the break.
Others were too weak from repeated drawing of blood, and Li had no