by Hal Gold
[Koreans and Chinese were brought in and beaten into forced labor at the Hanaoka mines to produce fuel for Japan's war machine. As in other Japanese forced-labor projects, such as the Burma-Siam Railroad, the death rate was high. Books and articles on the Hanaoka mines have appeared over the years, but redress from the government seems as remote as it has been with the comfort women problem.]
There were other mines in different parts of Japan, also, where such people were forced to work on meager rations. Many of them died from malnutrition. The people that we captured and sent off to be laborers were among them.
That was not the only destination for the prisoners we took. Other people giving testimony at this exhibition have spoken of the maruta, and one person who testified here earlier mentioned that an unusually high percentage of the Chinese maruta came from Shantung Province. That large number from Shantung Province is because of the prisoners that we took and sent to Unit 731 for their experimentation.
Another time, we took eight prisoners who had raised a white flag and surrendered. We were told to take them to a farm and wait there. I was wondering how we were going to transport them, when night came and we received orders to kill them. They were sitting on the ground, and the young soldiers like myself were ordered to bayonet them from the front while the experienced soldiers held the prisoners' shoulders from behind. After we killed them, we just left them there on the ground and went back to the battlefront. We didn't even dig holes.
This was one example of the conduct of the Japanese army, and it was absolutely against international law.
Soldier stationed at Pingfang (Shinohara Tsuruo)
Unit 731 was an underground organization. We were told to take the secret to the grave with us, and many people did adhere to the order for years after the war. But now, thanks to these times of peace, those who believed in the homeland and sacrificed themselves for it should not be forgotten. Truth is often recorded by being handed down verbally, and I believe that we cannot leave a blank space in history. For that reason, I summon up the courage to stand before you now to tell the truth about what I saw at Unit 731.
In December 1944, I was nineteen years old and working in Manchuria for the South Manchuria Railway Company, when an order for mobilization came from the Kwantung Army. Early the following year, I received orders to go to Harbin. I was told to go to the station at Harbin at a specified date and time and wait by the statue of Ito Hirobumi.
The train pulled in, and there were others already waiting there. A soldier came to take charge of us, and we boarded a train and went one stop to a small station. We got out at a tiny, remote village. That was Pingfang. On the horizon, there was a huge edifice that looked like one could put Tokyo's Marunouchi Building inside it three times.
We got off the train. In front of the station there were two soldiers working with something that looked like a fireman's hose, drawing up water from the river into buckets. Our leader told us, "This is river water, and there's no bacteria in it. Do you fellows want to take a drink?" We passed it up and kept walking. In hindsight, it must have been the Ishii water purifier they were working with, making the water safe for drinking.
We walked up the hill to the front of the unit and fell into formation in front of the main gate. Major General Kikuike, the adjutant, addressed us. The first thing he said was, "You fellows! Look behind me! Do you notice anything?"
We all said no, and he continued.
"There is no imperial chrysanthemum crest on the front of this unit." None of us had thought of that. All other installations displayed the crest at their entrances, and Japanese naval ships had the crest displayed at their bows. The adjutant continued speaking, advising us that "in due time, as the days pass, you'll get to learn what this unit is all about."
We were issued our uniforms and instructions. Then, as Unit 731 members, we received textbooks and were given an education that was made to penetrate into our bodies. We were told that our classes would start the next day, and that those of us who showed exceptional spirit would be recommended for assignment to the medical hospital in Harbin.
We all set to work with the ambition of studying diligently and making the best of our situation. We went on a hard schedule: from eight in the morning until midnight, with the exception of lunch and supper, we were in class. We were drilled in a scientific curriculum that included courses in human anatomy, disease prevention in the military, army hygiene, the Ishii system of water purification, the essentials of river water supply, emergency disinfection including emergency antidotes for poisoning, disease prevention patrol, and water testing patrol. These are the subjects we had to absorb in a short time.
Our instructor told us about the situation with the war—that Japan was losing. The unit leader came around during instruction period and told us, "Education is like your own internal organs. It brings out your ability. So I want you to apply yourselves."
Studying under a schedule like this every day, it was only natural that in the afternoons we would get sleepy. The instructor woke us up by telling us stories about his own experiences. Once, he recalled the time when he was part of an operation in the city of Jilin. They carried plague bacteria there and conducted tests. The method involved placing the pathogens into buns and then wrapping them in paper. The Unit 731 men went to an area of the city where children were playing, and started eating buns similar to those in which they had planted the germs. The children saw the men eating, and came over. Then, the men gave the children the infected buns. Two or three days later, the strategy team went to the village to investigate, and noted stories about outbreaks of disease.
There were vegetable gardens at the unit. Gardens on one side were for growing food for us; the gardens on the other side were used for testing cholera germs for use as plant pathogens, but I heard later that those tests ended in failure.
People who were arrested on the Chinese mainland as spies, then tried in a military court in Harbin and found guilty, were sent to Unit 731 and placed into prison blocks for medical experiments There were always guards at the entrance. Every day, a covered truck came in from Harbin with three or four maruta. Our instructor told us that, in the prison blocks, the maruta were being infected with plague, cholera, typhus, and syphilis. He said that one test entailed injecting typhoid germs into a person's side. We did not have the authority to enter the blocks and could only hear about what went on inside from our instructor. He related that, on entering the dissection room, one first had to put on heavy rubber clothes, then a disinfectant mist was sprayed from above. He said that about three or four people at a time worked on a dissection. While one person worked with the scalpel, another next to him measured time—for example, how much time elapsed from injection until dehydration set in, and how long it would take for death to occur.
I thought that this was a cruel thing that the Japanese army was doing, but that I had to resign myself to it.
In July, we heard news that the Special Attack Forces [the kamikaze and other suicide units] would be taking off from the Unit 731 airfield. If we were called to go, we would have to resign ourselves to death. I would have been resigned to my fate, in line with the teachings of the Buddhist saint, Amida.
In August, a message came to the unit that Sato Take, the Japanese ambassador to Moscow, had gone to speak with Molotov with a request for peace. On the morning of the ninth, Molotov's reply came: at midnight, the Soviets would invade Manchuria. This message went to the War Ministry, which in turn ordered us to "stop 731 research. Blow up facilities immediately and evacuate."
Early the next morning, we started the job of evacuation. About one hundred people pulled out first and headed for the Korean border. Unit 731 got the Russian message before any other unit, but we did not know whether Molotov's statement was true or not, so the maruta were not killed yet.
At the morning muster on August 9, an officer on a white horse galloped around the compound telling us that the Soviets had attacked, and we were to pay close atten
tion to unit orders from now on. The first thing we were told to do was destroy any evidence on us that we were connected with Unit 731. The next day, three of us were assigned to go into the prison blocks. This was an area I had been prohibited from entering until now. In one block, three maruta were lying on the floor, but most of them had already been taken outside. We dug a hole and piled up several alternating layers of logs and maruta, one on top of the other. None of us knew what the other people were doing; we each worked in our own group. The upper-ranking officers sent their families, along with their important documents, to Tokyo from the Unit 731 airfield. The unit leader's house was in Tokyo, and I think that that's where the documents were all taken.
We had to blow up the prison cells. They were numbered 1 through 12. I went into the Number 12 cell to place explosives into the walls. The walls were white, and on one there was a message written in blood: "Down with Japanese imperialism. Long live President Jiang [Chiang]!" The blood had not darkened yet, so it had to have been written very recently. And it was written in educated script. Whoever wrote that had obviously cut his finger to get the blood. He was undoubtedly suffering from experiments and on the verge of death. Those characters will remain with me for life; they are etched into my heart.
I thought that the person in that cell must have been a key figure directly under the authority of Jiang Jieshi. I ran outside, but the layers of firewood and maruta were already piled up. I looked for someone with blood on his hands that would indicate who he was, but I was not able to find him.
On August 14, at 6 P.M., the order came to blow up Unit 731. The laboratory equipment and the specimens in the glass cases were being loaded onto trucks from the evening of the thirteenth, and through the next morning, numerous trips were made to the Songhua [Sungari] River to dump the specimens. Most of the unit members pulled out, and there were only about thirty people left when the facilities were blown up. Before the facilities were blown up, I went through the different cells for a farewell look. There was not even one item to be seen in any cell. Everything had been stripped bare.
The switch to set off the charges was thrown, and we boarded the train with the sound of explosions ringing in the air.
We headed south, toward the northern border of Korea, picked up the advance group that had left the grounds ahead of us, and started crossing the Korean peninsula. The fifteenth and sixteenth passed without incident. On the train, an officer came and told us "On September 1, you men will fly to Okinawa and spread bacteria among the American forces. You will be the Yozakura Special Forces." We were carrying bacteriological bombs with us on the train, but they ended up being disposed of in the Sea of Japan. After that, the local situation became restless, and guns were set up in the freight cars. We reached Pusan on the twentieth, and from there we were placed on a ship for Japan, eventually docking in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Then, we scattered like butterflies and returned to our hometowns.
Later, I found a job on the Japanese National Railways. On January 26, 1946, there was a detestable incident at a branch of the Teikoku Bank. A man faked the identity of an official from the Ministry of Health and Welfare and appeared at a branch of the bank. He told the manager that an epidemic disease had broken out in the vicinity and asked to have all the employees gather for instructions on how to drink a preventive medicine. Twelve people died, and the police went searching for the culprit.
It was natural that Unit 731 should fall under the eyes of investigators. Detectives came to my place of work and told me, "You were in Unit 731. Your superior officers gave you potassium cyanide to drink in case you were captured by the Russians or Americans." I was shocked. I said I didn't know anything about it and tried to brush it off. From then on, the detectives kept coming back and talking to my superiors. Talk spread around my workplace that I was a war criminal, and that I did not have the right to work in a public organization. I started getting dirty looks. I quit the national railways and wandered around for a while. Then, in September 1951, the peace treaty was signed in San Francisco, and the postwar period became more settled. I didn't think anybody would be bad-mouthing me any more, so I decided to go into business for myself and have continued that way ever since.
Soldier attached to Unit 731 (Ohara Takeyoshi)
I joined the cavalry in my home prefecture in 1939. In April of that year, I was stationed in Northeast China, then in March 1942, I was transferred to Unit 731. I did not know anything about that unit. My orders were for transfer to the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit Headquarters. In time, I found out what Unit 731 really was.
My first duty was taking care of domesticated animals, such as sheep, goats, horses, and cows. I assisted in researching the diseases that affect these animals.
At Anda, I saw tests in which maruta were tied to crosses in a large circle, as planes flew over and dropped bacteriological bombs in the area surrounded by the crosses. Their legs were chained, and their bodies were tied tightly; we observed the tests from a distance of about two hundred meters.
I had the job of cleaning up and disinfecting after the experiments, and gathering debris lying around. We wore special clothes that had a zipper in front and covered us from head to toe. We wore gas masks, rubber boots, and rubber gloves. Since we'd go into bacteria infested areas, we couldn't go to the toilet because of the danger of our getting infected ourselves. We'd have to go back to the unit, get into a tent for a disinfectant shower over our rubber clothes, and then wait a while. After that, we could finally take off the protective clothing. Then, we'd have to get into a disinfectant bath, then another bath with different water. When that was over, we could at last get dressed. I didn't know what kind of bacteria was being used at the Anda testing ground.
I want people who come to this exhibition to tell their children and grandchildren that there is nothing more stupid and fearful than war.
Nurse attached to Unit 731 (Sakumoto Shizui)
There was a hospital in Harbin for treating members of Unit 731 who became sick or infected from working with the experiments. I was assigned there in the summer of 1942, and I worked there for about a year. People infected with plague were also sent to us. With plague, as you know, many people die in three days to a week after infection occurs.
When I was there, a nineteen-year-old by the name of Ishii Ichiro [almost certainly General Ishii's son] who had contracted plague was sent to us from headquarters. Plague is a very serious problem, so all communicable disease cases in our hospital were taken to another hospital. There were twenty-five of us nurses, and five of us were picked to take care of Ishii. There's no telling when a patient like this could die. The medical officer in charge told us, "If he has a lung hemorrhage, you get outside quickly." But there was no coughing up of blood, and in a month the patient recovered.
During that month, we all worked with the feeling that we never knew who among us might be the next one to be sacrificed. We couldn't eat. And, when we had night duty, we had to stay in the same room with the patient. Thinking about it now, that was fearful work. But I came through it, and I've lived a long life.
When we were first called to serve, it was for a hospital ship. That was in July 1941. With the outbreak of the war, it was decided that hospital ship duty would be too dangerous for women, and they transferred us to land units. I worked in an army hospital for a year, and then received a transfer to Harbin. Nobody knew anything about communicable diseases there, or about a special unit. With no advance notice, we were transferred to the south wing of the hospital. I now know how highly secret it was.
Intelligence officer (Ogura Yoshikuma)
I joined the army in my home prefecture of Kagoshima, and later was sent to Tokyo. In preparation for the southward expansion of operations, I was assigned to study Islam; at the time there was confusion between Islam and Judaism. After that I was sent to Manchuria and assigned to a unit directly under the control of General Staff Headquarters, Special Forces. In other words, we were spies.
My
first assignment was in Harbin, and after that I went to other areas. During that time my work involved gathering information from the Soviet Union and on biological warfare strategy.
Right after I reached Manchuria in 1939, the Nomonhan Incident occurred. That was when Japan first employed bacteriological warfare, dumping typhus germs into a river. The effect on the enemy was doubtful, but there were casualties among the Japanese army itself.
I was stationed in a location called Dongning. The leadership there had absolute authority in Manchuria. The place was situated between an old Soviet army base and a Kwantung Army base. The people of the village had been chased out, and only the church was left standing. The reason for leaving the church was that the Soviets who used it might come there.
Usually, we did not carry guns and lived like ordinary civilians, gathering information on the Soviets. In one year, I wore a uniform only once. Even going in and out of Unit 731, I was in civilian clothes.
In order to gather information, we used Manchurians with some degree of education and trained them for a short time, then sent them into the Soviet Union to do intelligence work. Those people, however, would be used by the Soviets for counterintelligence and sent back to Manchuria. And this is how intelligence was gathered, through this coming and going of Manchurian agents.
I think that the Soviets were far superior to us at gathering intelligence. They had non-rotating staff doing only intelligence work. The Manchurian spies they sent were so well trained they never gave themselves away. And the Soviets were better than us at code-breaking.
I was also involved with bacteriological tactics. I went in and out of Unit 731 repeatedly, and I saw experiments carried out on humans. I used to carry back bacteria from Unit 731, inject them into pigs and other domestic animals, and release the animals into Soviet territory. And it was not only animals. I used people also. We would inject people, wait two or three days, take them up to Soviet border, and send them in. When we went up near the border at night, the Soviets would shoot illuminating shells and then open up with gunfire. That was dangerous work.