Page 44 - Unit 731 Testimony

substantive proof. He also set about on his own search for information
concerning the laboratory. He located the former head of the laboratory and
got a story, albeit with credibility gaps. Phan of the Straits Times then

followed up on his coverage in the newspaper's November 11, 1991 issue
with a second piece on the issue. In an article headlined "Germ lab's head
says work solely for research, vaccines . . . But Japanese professor sceptical
about his claim," Phan followed the progress of Professor Matsumura's
investigation into the issue, while also giving space to the former laboratory
administrator's rebuttal.

The story gave the Japanese government a problem, and it issued the
predictable and well-worn denial. Concerning this response, Phan wrote
that "the Japanese government responded, saying that it had no records of
such a laboratory—a claim which contrasted with those in U.S. Army
documents which mentioned its existence." The documents of course are

those which U.S. military authorities gathered from interviews with Unit
731 leaders forty-five years earlier, which made some passing mention of a
Singapore unit.
The former head of the Singapore facility was "a retired doctor in his

early eighties who refused to be identified." According to the article, "he
said he was transferred to Singapore a week after the island was occupied in
February, 1942 from the main branch of. . . Unit 731 in Harbin, Manchuria.
Singapore was the headquarters of the Japanese Southern Army and the
base to supply material to the war front. To prevent the outbreak of diseases
in the city, strict bacteriological checks on water supply and fresh food were

carried out." The retired doctor mentions soldiers catching rats in the city
and conducting experiments with them, and comments, "Such behavior
must have seemed odd to the people there and thus caused
misunderstanding."
Did the people misunderstand? Or did they, in fact, understand all too

well? The former laboratory chief talks of the large scale on which his
facility operated—it employed all of one thousand members—and the fact
that it was had been set up by people brought into Singapore by Naito
Ryoichi, a prominent Unit 731 officer who later played an important role in
the outfit's first negotiations with American occupation forces.

Matsumura's counterargument concerning the benign role allegedly
played by the Singapore unit was also carried in the same newspaper: "The