Page 42 - Unit 731 Testimony

Constantly forced to be part of the morbid business of infection and
killing, Choi faked appendicitis, which got him sick leave from his job and
a chance to escape. Unfortunately, he was caught by kenpeitai officers and

given the water torture with hot peppers mixed into the water. This caused
him permanent lung damage, and he has been in and out of the hospital for
the past fifty years.

Singapore
In September 1991, journalist Phan Ming Yen of the Singapore Straits
Times broke the story that it had apparently been confirmed that a Japanese

biological warfare installation—rumored but not proven to have existed—
had operated in Singapore. He wrote his story after locating a man who
claimed to have worked in the lab as a youth. Phan announced that "a
Singapore connection has been mentioned fleetingly in some accounts, but
no concrete evidence has been cited until now.

"Confirmation of the Singapore secret laboratory was made following
a Straits Times interview with Mr. Othman Wok, sixty-seven, former
minister for social affairs, who said he worked as an assistant in the
laboratory for over two years during the Japanese Occupation." According
to the Straits Times article, the research unit, code-named Oka 9420, was

situated in a building now occupied by the Drug Administration Division of
the Ministry of Health, and "local historians contacted were unaware of the
existence of the laboratory.

Singapore was captured by the Japanese in February 1942. Several
months later, Othman, then seventeen years old, found himself looking for
employment in the occupied land, and his uncle, who worked in a Japanese-
run laboratory, provided a recommendation that enabled Mr. Othman to get
a job. His unwitting contribution to Japan's biological warfare program thus
began.

Seven Chinese, Indian, and Malay boys working in the lab were all
assigned the task of picking fleas from rats and putting them into
containers. The article quotes Othman Wok as saying, "It was an
unforgettable experience. It was the first time that I was doing something
which made me feel like a medical student."

Some forty rat catchers, apparently Japanese soldiers, would comb
Singapore for the rodents and bring their haul into the lab. The rats would