Page 49 - Unit 731 Testimony

experimenting in China, the professor would receive the work of that
student through the Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory in Tokyo. If
the results were incomplete, this information would be channeled back

through the Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory, and the experiments
would continue further. In this way, the Epidemic Prevention Research
Laboratory was a coordinating body that tied in civilian research in Japan
with military research in Japan and overseas. Japanese military aggression
made the human experimentation possible; the Japanese medical
community was the silent inquisitor.

Ishii's Battlefield Debut

Despite the fact that Ishii's organization was officially a water
purification and disease prevention unit, these missions were a distant

second priority for it. Japanese military medicine had grown away from its
Russo-Japanese War heritage. In 1937, however, it took a turn back toward
its roots—protection of Japanese troops from disease—when, during some
fighting, Japanese soldiers drank from a creek and many cases of cholera
broke out. It was said that, because of the diarrhea, very few soldiers were
fighting with their pants on. The Japanese suspected that the Chinese had
contaminated the stream.

Ironically, Ishii, virtually all of whose career had been devoted to
developing offensive biological warfare, played an important role in this
brief return to defensive medicine. An invention of his, a portable water

filtering system, was finally allowed to accompany the troops. The machine
was a cylindrical mechanism about one meter in length and forty-five
centimeters in diameter. Water was fed in at one end, and a hand crank
forced the water under pressure through a filtering system of unglazed
diatomite. This was the same material used in his bombs.

Ishii's device had not proven effective against cholera germs in tests to
date, but the sense of urgency brought about by the combination of
increasing numbers of incapacitated soldiers and Ishii's typical heavy-
handed insistence convinced the army to put his system into operation. Five
trucks carrying water filtration units and a team of about two hundred men
started supplying drinking water to the Japanese fighting men, and, for

reasons that remain unclear, cholera cases dropped sharply. Ishii was
decorated and received a monetary award for his contribution to Japan's
fighting forces. The praise he received caught the attention of American