Page 50 - Unit 731 Testimony

intelligence personnel who were interested in why the work of an army
doctor was so highly regarded. This was the first time Ishii's name came to
the attention of the American military.

Shortly thereafter, Ishii would be unleashed to pursue his real calling,
offensive biological warfare. In 1938 and 1939, the Soviet and Japanese
armies clashed in two full-scale encounters at the Manzhouguo border and
former Mongolian border. The latter battle, which came to be known as the
Nomonhan Incident, resulted in an overwhelming defeat of the Japanese

forces. The clash, which saw the first field operation of the biological
warfare unit, occurred in a desert region where water was scarce. Bidding a
quick adieu to the water purification role that he had helped play in China,
Ishii was undoubtedly more at home with his new mission: plans now
called for his unit to cause epidemics by poisoning the water supply of the
enemy.

In 1989, a journalist for the Asahi newspaper held a meeting with three
former Youth Corps members of Unit 731. It was a quiet, private affair
covered in the newspaper's August 24 edition with the headline "Typhoid
Germs Thrown Downstream at Nomonhan Incident: Three Men Formerly

Connected with Ishii Unit Testify After Fifty Years." The article reported
their stating that "with our own hands, we threw large quantities of
intestinal typhoid bacteria into the river during the Nomonhan Incident."
But the tactic produced more questions than results.

According to the recollections of the three men, the use of typhoid
germs was initiated by the Ishii unit after the Japanese sustained a heavy
attack. By the latter part of August, it was clear that Japan's Manchurian
army would be defeated, and the biological warfare operation would appear
to have been undertaken out of desperation. According to the account in the
article,

the upper reaches of the of the river were not far from the Japanese
army camp. [Group Leader] Yamamoto's plan was to throw the

pathogens into the river so that they would travel downstream to the
Russo-Mongol army and infect the soldiers. We loaded the pathogens
into two trucks and headed for the dumping area. There were fourteen
or fifteen of us, including the leader. Over the next few days, we made
two attempts to reach the river, but couldn't make it because of heavy

Russian artillery fire and the trucks' getting bogged down in soft