Page 63 - Unit 731 Testimony

putting her eye-ball-to-eyeball with Moscow. If another clash came, it was
sure to be in cold weather.

In fact, cold-weather combat had already established itself as a
problem. At the time of the Manchurian Incident that began Japan's
occupation of parts of China in 1931, army medics treated large numbers of
Japanese soldiers who suffered from frostbite. Usually, fingers and toes
would be affected. Frostbitten and normal parts of limbs were marked with
blue or green dividing lines. Treatment of the problem normally involved

application of ointment to affected areas and amputating where necessary
(without anesthetic). This experience made it clearer than ever that cold-
weather fighting demanded prior knowledge of frostbite prevention and
treatment.

Training for the Russo-Japanese War had included winter maneuvers
by Japanese troops in the mountains of northern Japan. Preparation for the
next round of potential winter warfare would be supervised by physiologist
Yoshimura. Yoshimura was called to Manchuria to conduct cold-weather
tests on human subjects, and one of the standard methods that he employed
in his research was deliberate induction of frostbite.

A member of the Yoshimura team, Nishi Toshihide, was captured by
the Soviets, and he testified at the Khabarovsk trials as to how some of the
experiments were carried out. He also stated that 16-mm movies had been
made as a visual record of the experiments. Reports from other Unit 731

members corroborate his statements.
People were taken from prison into below-freezing temperatures. They
were tied up, with their arms bared and soaked with water. Water was
poured over the arms regularly; sometimes the ice that formed on them

would be chipped away and water again poured over. The researcher would
strike the limbs regularly with a club. When an arm made a sound like a
wooden board's being hit, this indicated that the limb was frozen through,
and from there different methods of treatments were tested. Legs and feet
were exposed to similar treatment.

Temperatures in Manchuria can reach as low as minus twenty to thirty
degrees Celsius. Some of the tests were conducted outdoors in these winter
conditions. At times, electric fans were used to speed the freezing. At
Pingfang, Yoshimura had his own large refrigerator lab that allowed him to
freeze subjects all year round and reach even lower temperatures than out in