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Saved here are relevant articles and documents re WWII in Asia. In his speech at the Japanese Diet in
Tokyo, February 17, 2000, Rabbi Abraham Cooper articulates the importance of memory as the foundation of genuine trust among
peoples and urges Japanese legislators to follow the German-Jewish model of the postwar era exemplified by Germanys acceptance
of moral responsibility for its past.
Kaneko Michios article on Japans Responsibility for War Reparations and Fujii
Shizues article on Untold Story of How Imperial Army Unit 731 Escaped from Justice of the Tokyo Trial deal with two topics
of special interest. The Shizue article also shows U. S. responsibility for the cover-up of the Unit 731s crimes so as to
prevent revelation of Japanese work on biological and chemical weapon research, in particular its research results in Allies
possession, to the former USSR.
Cooper, Abraham, The Moral Power of Memory, reprinted from Chinese American Forum,
Vol. XVI, No. 1, July 2000.
I first wish to take this opportunity to express my sincere gratitude to the Parliamentary
League for Seeking Legislation of the Fact-Finding Law for the Eternal Peace for inviting me to present my remarks today.
What brings us together today? Language? No, I can only communicate through the talents of these brilliant interpreters.
Culture? Despite our mutual love for baseball, technology, and fashion, the cultural divide is as deep and profound as the
ocean that connects us. Religion? I doubt that there are any other members of the Jewish faith in this room.
I am
here today because as a representative of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and The Museum of Tolerance. I believe that there are
universal truths that transcend our differences and that one of those truths is a key to a better future for us all.
A Jewish sage has taught that in remembrance lies the roots of redemption and in forgetfulness the roots of destruction.
Yet, historic truth is not always a pleasant or reassuring experience. True, the last century offers much to cherish in the
Jewish experience. I was born in 1950 and have had the opportunity, like thousands of other young Jews, to study the traditions
of Moses in the Holy Land which is under Jewish sovereignty for the first time in 2000 years. But, here is so much in the
collective experience of the Jewish people that evokes not light but darkness, not thoughts of renewal hut images of genocide,
not hope hut terror. The mere mention of places like Auschwitz, Trrblinka, Majdanek or names like Hitler, Eichmann, Mengele,
evokes for the survivors of the Holocaust, the ghost of six million loved ones. among them one and a half million children.
For my generation those images evoke anger, fear and yes even the yearning for unattainable revenge.
Small wonder
then that for so many years, virtually everyone from the leaders of the free world to most Jewish leaders, to teachers and
parents - all gave the same advice; it is time to put the past to rest, to forgive and forget, to move on. All except one
man, one survivor of the Nazi holocaust without whom the world would have forgotten, never to connect the lines between the
Nazi just solution and the mass murderers of the modem era in Cambodia, the Kurds, Rwanda, and the former Yugoslavia.
Simon Wiesenthal is the man who would not let the world forget. He is the survivor who would not let the next generation
hate. At 91, a man whose formal training was in architecture, a man who stumbled out of the Nazi holocaust, barely 45 kilos,
who lost 89 members of his family to Nazi murderers, to become the custodian of memory. From the day of his liberation in
May l945, Wiesenthal became a warrior without an army, an ambassador without a diplomatic passport, a crusader without a pulpit.
From the depths of the death camps, Simon instinctively knew what would take the world five decades to learn - that only through
remembrance could justice and idealism be restored to a world devastated by war, racism, anti-Semitism, mass murder (and)
that only by meticulously remembering the innocent, helpless victims of genocide and pursuing their victimizers, through the
rule of law, could the values of compassion, fairness and tolerance flourish.
To the children of the murderers and
the martyred, Wiesenthal had a special message: collective responsibility yes, but no collective guilt for new generations:
no vigilante acts, only criminals prosecuted in a court of law. For 55 long years, long before 40 heads of state convened
in Stockholm to reflect on the legacy of the holocaust, Simon proclaimed to an apathetic international community that every
day was a remembrance day and that silence was admittance and that historic amnesia would spawn new generations of mass murderers
and lead to the whitewashing of the crimes of the past.
Perhaps there is poetic justice that Simon Wiesenthal has
lived long enough to witness the rise of demagogue Jorg Haider in Austria. Yes, Haider has won his share of power through
the rules of democracy and, no, he is not Adolf Hitler --not Hitler of 1943, 1933 or even 1923. But Mr. Wiesenthal reminds
the world that the early responses to Hitler were clever political jokes, rationalizations and most of all apathy, the very
oxygen of demagogues and political extremists. But we can take some measure of solace in the fact that this time the world
seems to be listening to Wiesenthals warnings and is not silent, as the European union, as well as individual countries, have
told Austria that it cannot and will not be business as usual.
Todays developments in central Europe provide additional
proof why we need to uncover and learn from every historic document from that dark era. It explains why the center which
bears Wiesenthals name was proud to lobby the United States Congress to pass, nearly unanimously, legislation unlocking millions
of Nazi-era documents. This new material is sure to shed new light not only on the history of Nazi Germany but also on misguided
U.S. policies and actions during that period. Tragically, some of those policies helped seal the fate of European Jews, and
later, in postwar period. enabled too many Nazi war criminals to gain entry into America.
As an American citizen,
I was proud to stand in the Oval Office of the White House as President Clinton signed this bill into law. And the Wiesenthal
Center naturally also supports Senator Dianne Feinsteins efforts to apply the same commitment to all files related to the
Asia-Pacific war. We fully expect that her efforts will lead to another White House signing ceremony.
Today, I am
deeply honored to share the podium with this distinguished group of Japanese Parliamentarians who are working toward the same
goal of securing a better future for this region by trying to make available the full painful but precious legacy of historic
truth for future generations. Sadly, this country lacks a consensus as concerns Japanese war crimes of the 1930s and 1940s.
Despite the efforts of Japanese activists. we find that near-hysteria, instead of measured and serious historic review, dominates
the ongoing debate over this issue.
Following a period of relative quiet, the subject exploded onto the international
scene as a result of several developments, especially Iris Changs The Rape of Nanking, a book that captured the reading publics
imagination and became an international best seller. But here in Japan. while German chancellor Schroeder took the podium
in Stockholrn to once again proclaim his nations responsibility for the past and their solidarity with the victims of Nazism,
nationalists were permitted to convene a conference in Osaka to deny that events such as the Nanjing massacre never took place,
or minimize their horrors to make them appear inconsequential. Others seek to resurrect the reputation of the Showa Emperor
and put a rosy gloss on the liberation of millions of Asians as a result of Japanese conquest and military occupation. Even
ordinary citizens who are neither Rightists nor Leftists inadvertently aid the revisionist cause by seeing Japan only as the
victim of a nuclear holocaust and not as an aggressor. That is why your initiative is so crucial. By demanding a full accounting
of the past you will help set the moral compass for future generations.
The Simon Wiesenthal Center, headquartered
in Los Angeles, California is the only major Jewish organization located on the Pacific rim. It is also among the largest
Jewish membership organization in the world. For the last fifteen years the Wiesenthal Center has been involved in Japan:
first. to combat the great number of anti-Jewish books sold there by educating the Japanese public about the perils of anti-Semitism
and, second, to correct untruths that appear in the Japanese media with regard to the Nazi Holocaust and other aspects of
Jewish history. We are particularly proud of the fact that our Japanese language exhibition, Courage to Remember, has been
viewed by over a million Japanese in forty venues across your nation. There is a third reason for its involvement, namely,
the fight for historic truth and the value of memory. Other organizations and groups have their reasons, rightly or wrongly,
for seeking to call Japan to account, including those that seek monetary reparations for Japans World War II-era victims.
We have sympathy for some of these groups, but we do not control or seek to control, organize or script their actions.
Furthermore, we certainly do not sanction those who, without foundation in history, make claims about Japans behavior
in the Second World War or who seek to offend or disparage Japan, the Japanese people or the US-Japan alliance. Our focus
is separate and distinct from all the rest: the Simon Wiesenthal Center believes that only full access to all documents from
the World War II-era can establish the historic truth and lay the foundation for true reconciliation between Japan and her
neighbors.
This is our issue, one that we seek to bring to the attention of Japan and the United States. And that
is why we are so honored to stand in solidarity with your non-partisan efforts. Because your initiative has global implications
as the Simon Wiesenthal Center promotes the release of all those documents currently in the archives of Japan, the United
States, China and Russia to a panel of distinguished historians which we hope, will be assembled in Tokyo. Such a commission
would convene with one goal in mind: de-politicizing the search for historic truth. Once this commission completes its work
and makes it public, the findings will serve as the basis for new generations to learn the lessons of the past.
Our
commitment to full historic disclosure also extends to Washington where, in meetings with Attorney General Janet Reno and
the Pentagon, we have pressed for the release of all documents relative to war crimes in the Pacific. Among other things
this includes the amnesties granted to Japanese war criminals by American authorities in the post-war years in return for
data compiled through heinous and gruesome medical experiments on innocent people. Amnesty was an egregious mistake by the
United States. Historians and the public need to know why amnesty was granted and by whom just as much as they need information
about Unit 731 and other facilities that perverted science to engage in experiments on living human beings.
As many
of you know, to-date Japanese officials deny that such documents even exist (including protestations that they cannot find
persons involved in Unit 731), while official Washington is slow to act. But too much is at stake to accept these lame responses.
Memory should stand beyond politics. The treaty formally ending hostilities between the United Slates and Japan is political.
It addresses the question of Japans sovereignty, not its responsibility. But memory is the foundation of genuine trust, a
question of future relations of peoples and nations.
In the 21st century, thoughtful Japanese of all points of view
have two competing models to guide their relations with the Asia-Pacific world. The first is the German-Jewish model of the
postwar era. Germanys acceptance of moral responsibility for its past slowly but steadily succeeded in normalizing relations
with the Jewish world. The other model is characterized by the unresolved tensions between the Turks and Armenians over tragic
events that took place in 1915, a relationship that has never healed.
As experts in memory, not conspiracy, the Simon
Wiesenthal Center joins with you in imploring the government of Japan, to adopt the first model. By moving to heal the wounds
that continue to fester among the people of the Asia-Pacific region, Japan will put an end to suspicion and doubt, adding
the quality of trust to its other magnificent accomplishments in the postwar world.
In closing, allow me to once
again commend your sacred efforts on behalf of memory, justice and reconciliation and to assure you of our continued support
and solidarity.
Michio, Kaneko, Japans Responsibility for War Reparations, translated into Chinese by Mao Hui-ling,
The Journal of Studies of Japanese Aggression Against China, No. 25, 1996/11, pp. 89/94. Only the synopsis in English is
reprinted below.
Kaneko Michio presents a persuasive case for seeking war reparations from Japan. Michio first explains
the principles of past postwar reparations between nations. He then shows how the US and Canadian governments offered apology
and compensations to their nationals of Japanese descent who suffered losses during the war; how the Soviet Union apologized
and compensated the Polish officers massacred in Zatyn Forest and the Japanese prisoners of war died in the Siberia labor
camps. In particular, he notes how did the German government pass specific legislation to compensate the victims of the
Nazis. In fact, German compensation for the Jewish people will last until AD 2030, amounting to hundreds of billion Deutsche
marks. Michio further notes how the Chinese paid reparations to Japan after the first Sino-Japanese War, and how the Japanese
demanded Russian reparations after the Russo-Japanese War.
Moreover, Michio raises the issue of Japans responsibility
for war reparation by showing that the Japanese government generously compensated the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
and the family members of those who were killed during the war. In contrast, what Japanese government has done for the Taiwanese,
Koreans, Manchurian Chinese who were drafted and died in the service of Japan during the war, the slave laborers working in
the Japanese mines and factories, the comfort women forced to serve as prostitutes for Japanese armed forces. These received
either little compensation or none at all from the Japanese government. As neo-militarism sweeps across Japans islands and
justice for its victims remains to be served, Michio presents a fresh soul-seeking outlook for Japanese people.
Shizue,
Fujii, An Untold Story of How Imperial Army Unit 731 Escaped from Justice of the Tokyo Trial, translated into Chinese---ibid.,
pp. 4/22. Only the liberal abridgment by Prof. Tien-wei Wu---ibid., pp. 123/132---is reprinted below.
For making
biological warfare (BW) weapons, Japan went so far as to use human beings as guinea pigs for experimentation. Consequently
it did acquire some invaluable data that the United States did not possess, but that did not save Japan from defeat in World
War II. In October 1944, a large scale naval battle was fought at Leyte Gulf, in which the Japanese navy suffered a smashing
defeat, having lost the bulk of its fleet. Next March, Iwo Jima after a fierce battle was captured by the U.S. forces, followed
by the protracted Okinawa battle with the Americans landing in April. Progressively war was pressing on Japans home islands.
Equally threatening was the massing of Soviet troops in the north, while the Chinese counteroffensive was well under way.
Taking into consideration of all this, Unit 731, particularly its commander, Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii, was thinking of ways to
retreat.
I. RETREAT OF UNIT 731
The Soviet Union entering the war. Shiro Ishii who had been transferred
to the 1st Army in August 1942 now returned to Pingfang to take the command of Unit 731 in March 1945. Following the surrender
of Nazi Germany in May, Ishii changed the name of Unit 731 to Unit 25202 and under order from the Ministry of Army and the
Kwantung Army accelerated the production of biological weapons in preparation for a full-scale biological warfare.
A
year earlier, foreseeing the imminent offensive from the Soviets, the Kwantung Army had moved strategic materiel and secret
documents to Tunghua located in the mountains of southern Chilin. Now part of Unit 731 supplies was moved there. The feelings
among members of Unit 731 that the war was lost could be observed by other signs. Pregnant wives of cadres were persuaded
to have abortion. Maruta, victim of human experiment, was no longer wanted and transported to Pingfang but put to death by
the Japanese consulate or gendarmes at Harbin.
On August 9, 1945, the well-prepared Soviet army of one and a half
million men strong bolstered by 5,500 tanks, nearly 3,900 combat aircraft, and a flotilla in the Amur River invaded Manchuria
on three fronts: the Trans-Baikal, Mongolia, and maritime province; the three front armies were commanded, respectively, by
Marshals A. M. Vasilevsky, R. Y. Malinovsky and K. A. Meretskov. On all fronts, the Kwantung Army was caught unprepared and
retreated in great confusion, so that the Commander-in-Chief Otozo Yamada issued the order of retreat to the second defense
line with Tunghua as its center and abandoned recourse to using biological weapons.
Conference on Evacuation.
An emergency conference was convened at the Unit 731 HQ on August 9; a hot debate ensued between Ishii and his chief of the
first department, Maj. Gen. Hitoshi Kikuchi. The former proposed that members stationed at Hailer, Linkou, Sunwu and Mutanchiang
as well as those living in the Togo dormitories at Pingfang all should commit suicide in order to keep the secret of the Unit
and that all marutas be killed and major buildings totally demolished by engineering unit. The latter, strongly opposed to
Ishiis idea, believed that Unit 731 have trained so many talented researchers; to force them to die would be worse than to
plan to save them; and as commander, Ishii should exert his utmost to send all the families back to Japan. Under pressure
of the majority opinion, Ishii ordered disbanding the Unit and setting in motion an all-out evacuation. While family members
were loaded into open freight cars for evacuation, first of all the marutas were killed and official documents, research data,
and materials were taken to the boiler room and incinerated, a job, recalled one eyewitness, which lasted from the 9th to
the 13th, August until the boiler exploded. However, Ishii did not throw away everything; he was able to select the most
important experimental data and laboratory reports loaded in three trunks to take home.
Return to Japan. After
ordering the destruction of the Unit 731 HQ, Ishii flew to Hsintsin (now Changchun), then the HQ of the Kwantung Army, where
using the communication network conducted the destruction of Unit 731 branches at Mutanchiang, Linkou, Sunwu, and Hailar.
The first evacuation train left Pingfang on August 11. Each person was limited to carry two pieces of luggage. One wife
recounted the urgent situation, as she was only able to carry a baby on her back with its diapers and a box of ashes of her
deceased son. The 2nd train left on the next day. Not until August 15, did all the 15 trains (each with 20 cars) leave Pingfang
and most of buildings were demolished. All the trains were guarded by gendarmes with special permission from the Kwantung
Army for priority passage and reached Pusan in late August, where they embarked ships for Japan. From August 18 to 25, they
landed at Sassebo, Hakata, Maizuru, Monji, Tsuruga, Senzaki, and Hagi. Upon landing, members of Unit 731 received the last
words from Ishii who afraid of the existence of Unit 731 being exposed issued the order: All members please obey three things:
(1) after returning to your native places, conceal your work with Unit 731 and military services; (2) do not take any governmental
jobs.; and (3) strictly severe all personal ties with each other, an order which has been largely kept until this day.
II. Contact between U.S. and Japanese BW Units
American Interest in Japanese BW Unit. As early as 1930,
U.S. Army Health Service Command was established at Frederick, Maryland to be devoted to preparing for defensive BW. American
attention towards the possibility of Japans waging BW was drawn by the latters attempt at securing the cultures of virulent
yellow fever virus. In February 1939, a young assistant professor from Tokyo Army Medical College by the name of Ryoichi
Naito came to New York trying to get the said virus from the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research even by bribing its
staff, but he failed. This episode and a similar one shortly before it were reported to the War Departments Intelligence
Service or G2. Two years later, Maj. Gen. J. Kunard, garrison commander of the Philippines, reported to Washington that he
had received information about Japans using BW in China. A BW unit was attached to the 5th regiment of the 5th division of
the Japanese army. Then the U.S. Army began seriously to study BW. On April 11, 1942, U.S. Ambassador reporting from Chungking
to the Secretary of State said that both Chinese ministries of foreign affairs and health accused the Japanese army of using
BW by spreading plague germs at Ningpo on October 27, 1940 and at Changte on November 4, 1941, which were regarded as the
first time the Japanese army used BW on a large scale.
With the war raging fiercely in the South Pacific, more troops
of the Kwantung Army were transferred to that front; some of them certainly had connection with the BW units. As increasing
number of Japanese POWs were taken in the South Pacific, the U.S. found out that not only was Japan engaged in significant
BW research, but its program was much larger than previously suspected. Americans then knew that Tokyo was the center for
biological experimentation and that Ishii was the forerunner of Japanese BW with his headquarters at Harbin, Manchuria. Also
known to the Americans, mainly from Japanese naval sources, was the size of Unit 731 germ bombs being manufactured.
On November 4, 1944, when Japan launched a balloon attack on the American west coast and Canada, U.S. Army suspected that
the balloons carried germs. As it turned out, they carried only incendiary device. But far away in China, U.S. Army learned
that Unit 1644 stationed in Nanking conducted biological experiments and engaged in BW as well. By 1945, that Japan was prepared
for BW was no longer questioned by the U.S. about the kinds of bacteria and the methods of transportation the Japanese used.
Here sowed the seeds of making a deal with Unit 731 after the war.
Shortly before the Pearl Harbor surprise attack,
the U.S. BW program was accelerated with Camp Detrick as the research center for chemical and biological warfare. To help
Detrick with its work, other installations were established: a field test site at Horn Island off the Mississippi River in
March 1943; a more important test site at Granite Peak, Utah in June 1944; and a production facility at Vigo, Indiana in May
1944.
By May 1944, Camp Detrick produced its first batch of 5,000 anthrax bombs. However the Vigo facility which
cost $8 million to build and hired 500 employees had the potential to produce 500,000 anthrax bombs or quarter of a million
botulinus bombs by using 12 large vats each containing 200,000 gallon fluid in a four-day cycle to culture germs. In June
1944, all the aforesaid establishments at Detrick, Horn Island, Granite Peak, and Vigo were under the administration of the
newly inaugurated Special Project Division. Among them, Camp Detrick (now renamed Fort Detrick) occupied 526-hectares of
land, employed 3,900 people, and had an annual budget of $12 million, a program which was far more extensive than that of
Unit 731. Yet, anxious for getting the data gained through human experiments which had been denied to the American researchers,
U.S. Army spared no effort to get hold of the Unit 731 experimental materials.
Kamakura Conference. When the war
was over, Camp Detrick scientist Murray Sanders accompanying the U.S. scientific delegation headed by Karl T. Compton, formerly
president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, arrived in Japan only one week after the Japanese surrender. He wanted
to find out as much as he could about the work of Unit 731 and Ishii. As Unit 731 destroyed the list of names of scientists
who were involved in BW, U.S. Military Intelligence or G2 and Sanders had to start their investigation with the Japanese ministry
of military medical affairs. From September 25 to November 10, 1945, Sanders had interviewed 22 people including Minister
of Army Sadamu Shimomora, Chief of Staff of the Japanese Army Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of the Medical Bureau of the Army Hiroshi
Kamibayasahi and others related to Unit 731, namely Tomosada Masuda, Ryoichi Naito (who served as Sanders interpreter) and
Takatomo Inoue. Theist of the interviews was embodied in the Sanders Report.
While interviews were in progress,
Sanders having believed what Naito told him that no human guinea pigs had been used recommended to General Douglas MacArthur
that we promise Naito that no one involved in BW will be prosecuted as a war criminal, to which the General replied: So offer
him [Naito] that promise as coming from General MacArthur--and get the data.
After five-month intensive search, around
the end of 1945 or early 1946, U.S. Intelligence successfully found Ishii and four other liaison persons of Unit 731. In a
fabulous hotel at Kamakura, U.S. Intelligence people met with the five Japanese for a conference. In the course of the meeting,
Ishii offered to make available all the contents of their human experiments and technique of biological weapons on condition
that they could be exonerated from being prosecuted as war criminals.
At first, U.S. Government was not convinced
of Japans human experimentation, nor did the U.S. Far East Command take the matter seriously. Only after the Soviet Union,
having occupied Manchuria and seized many former Unit 731 members, discovered hard evidence and pressed its interrogation
of Ishii, did the U.S. Government begin to believe what the Japanese scientists had claimed. It was then that Lt. Col. Arvo
Thompson was sent to carry on the investigation. He began to interview Ishii in the latters home on January 7, 1946 and the
interrogation centered around the organization of Unit 731 and its training and productivity. Thompson finished his report
on the interview in May 1946.
Worth noticing was the whereabouts of Masaji Kitano, the second commander of Unit
731. He did not attend the Kamakura conference. Later interrogation with him took place at Imais house in Tokyo. Although
Ishii and Kitano were not interrogated at the same time, their answers were so close as to make the Americans more convinced
of the accuracy of Japanese data. By then, the U.S. seemed to decide to monopolize the BW data in order to surpass the Soviet
military predominance. This can be seen in a directive the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued to Gen. MacArthur on January 24,
1947 that all intelligence information that may be detrimental to the security of this country or possibly detrimental to
the friendly relation between the U.S. and other friendly countries must be held confidential, the release of which must have
prior approval from the Joint of Chiefs of Staff and if necessary with the consent from the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee
(SWNCC). This directive has been interpreted as aiming to keep the secrets of Unit 731.
On April 4, 1947, Dr. Norbert
H. Fell from Detrick was sent to Japan to survey the Unit 731 data. He conducted many interviews with Unit 731 men such as
Masuda, Naito, Kikuchi, Wakamatsu, and Ishii, particularly Dr. Kanichiro Kamei. Fell made the verbal promise of their immunity
from war crimes which seems to have opened the floodgates of information. On May 6, 1947, in a top-secret telegram to Washington,
Fell said that Ishii told him that if we could give documentary immunity for myself, superiors, and subordinates, he would
get all the information for us. On the same day, MacArthur sent his important 5-part message that he favored gaining the
BW data by offering the assurance that such data would not be employed at war criminal trials. Washington was not sure and
sent two bacteriologists, Edwin V. Hill and Joseph Victor, to Japan for further evaluation in October. They found the Unit
731 scientists most cooperative. Hill was convinced that the investigation had greatly supplemented and amplified previous
information and recommended that every effort would be taken to prevent it from falling into other hands.
III.
How Did the U.S. Prevent Others from Investigation
From the outset, the U.S. did not want to share the BW information
of Unit 731 with other countries, not even Great Britain, its closest ally. So far as Ishii and his men were concerned, they
had no choice but to depend upon the Americans to avoid being pursued as war criminals and apprehended by the Soviets. To
keep the BW information from being leaked out especially to the Soviets, the U.S. and Ishii were brought together. It was
necessary that all demands for investigation whether it came from the Allies or the Soviet Union must have been refused.
This section will show how the U.S. had obstructed the efforts to investigate Unit 731 by the International Prosecution Section
of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), SCAPs (Supreme Command of Allied Powers) Legal Section, and
the Soviet Union.
Col. Thomas H. Morrow of the International Prosecution Section (IPS) was the first to rivet his
attention upon the Japanese BW. As a principal assistant to the Chief Prosecutor Joseph Keenan, Morrow arrived in Japan on
December 26, 1945. With the inauguration of IPS two weeks later, he set out to investigate Unit 731, an endeavor which was
not appreciated by the SCAP HQ. About the same time, the SCAP HQ took Ishii into custody and brought back from Shanghai his
successor Maj. Gen. Kitano who was interrogated by Avro Thompson. The Unit 731 issue had not assumed such an significant
proportion as it later did. Neither the secrecy surrounding Ishii was tightly kept. A somewhat detailed report on Ishiis
interrogation appeared in the February 27, 1946 issue of The Pacific Stars and Stripes, from which Morrow learned more Ishiis
activities. Basing on this new information about Ishii and the materials on the Japanese BW he gathered in his previous trip
to China taken shortly after his arrival in Japan, Morrow wrote a 12-page report and submitted to Chief Prosecutor Keenan
on March 2. Later he wrote a China Handbook. 1937-1945 accusing the Japanese army of using CW (chemical warfare) and BW in
China. Failing to interrogate Ishii, Morrow made a second trip to China; this time he was accompanied by Hsiang Che-chun,
Chinese International Prosecutor, secretary Louis H. Chen, and an American legal officer Mr. Sutton and later he was joined
by Keenan himself at Shanghai. The group returned to Japan on Aril 12. Ten days later, Morrow submitted his memorandum reviewing
Japanese aggression and economic exploitation in China as well as Japanese atrocities against the Chinese people in the war.
Further, he elaborated that Japan violated international law in waging CW and BW, the background of which was largely provided
by Maj. Gen. Yang Chang-kai, chief of anti-poisoning gas section under the Ministry of Military Affairs of the Chinese government.
The Japanese army employed poison gas alone that caused the deaths of 36,963 Chinese. Apparently a tacit understanding between
Keenan and SCAP was reached; as a result, the Unit 731 case had not been brought up in the open court at the Tokyo Trial.
On April 29, 1946, a former member of Unit 1644 by the name of Hasane Han voluntarily submitted the Certificate of
Crimes of the Japanese Army, which indicated that the epidemic prevention unit outwardly maintained the health of soldiers
as its mission, but actually manufactured germs of cholera, typhoid, bubonic plague, dysentery to be used to attack Chinese
soldiers and civilians. It also revealed that Unit 1644 at Nanking helped Ishii in spreading germs in rivers, wells, and
reservoirs and once in forcing 3,000 Chinese captives to eat contaminated foods. Like Morrows memorandum, Haris certificate
has been preserved in microfilm as one of the testimonies, but nothing has been done about it.
Survey of Japanese
Police. When the Tokyo Trial was in progress, two extraordinary incidents occurred in Japan which not only created a sensation
to the public but also led the police to rivet its attention to the former members of Unit 731.
1. Vivisection of
U.S. fliers at Kyushu University. At l0am, May 5, 1946, about a dozen of US B-29s raided Aso city of Kumanoto prefecture
in Kyushu. One B-29 was shot down with its 11-member crew, 3 dead and 8 captured. These 8 POWs were dissected alive by the
medical students of Kyushu University under the guidance of their teachers. After the Japanese surrender, the U.S. Army pressed
the Japanese government to find out the fate of these 8 men. A lengthy wide search ensued. The SCAP HQ set up an ad hoc
group composed of 8 officers in charge of translation, 7 interpreters, and 7 investigators with its general office at Kurume,
Kyushu. U. S. authorities were so serious in the investigation that they had secured the help from Lt. Gen. Suzuki Shigezo,
an legal expert, and Oyama Ayao, chief of bureau of legal affairs of the Ministry of Army. After over two years investigation,
it was discovered that the 8 American fliers died of vivisection, and more than 30 people of the medical school of Kyushu
University were indicted.
The way the medical students and their teachers conducted the live dissection on the
8 Americans was shocking and incredible. The indictment pointed out: The accused engaged in live dissection of the 8 captured
U.S. airmen to death by plucking out their brains, lungs, livers, stomachs, and hearts. They even injected sea-water into
their arteries as the substitution for blood. After they all died, parts of their viscera were cooked for a gourmet dinner
served in the dining room of the medical faculty of Kyushu University. Their frenzied, bizarre behavior illustrated how little
they felt guilty for vivisection. In spite of the method of vivisection at the Kyushu University being similar to that of
Unit 731, no trace of relation between them was known. On August 27, 1948, all the accused were sentenced to severe punishment:
two to be hanged (one Professor Ishiyama committed suicide) and the rest to serve term imprisonment from 15 to 25 years.
2. Imperial Bank Incident: On January 26, 1948, a middle-aged man who claimed to be a member of epidemic prevention
and sterilization of Tokyo came to the branch of Imperial bank at Shiiaka Machi in Tokyo. He declared that dysentery occurred
in the neighborhood and asked Manager Yoshida Takejiro and bank employees to administer vaccine. As a result, 15 people died
and he robbed the bank of 165,000 yens in cash and over 17,000 yens in checks. Afterwards, the suspect went to the Itahashi
branch of Yasuda Bank to have the checks cashed and disappeared without a trace. Later investigation discovered that the suspect
on October 14 in the previous year tried to rob another branch of Yasuda bank but failed owing to the vigilance of the bank
employees. He also failed in his attempt to rob one Mitsubishi branch bank. Because the crime committed in these cases required
special knowledge in biochemistry and familiarity with poisoning technique, police began to turn its investigation to former
members of Unit 731, which involved more than 50 noted doctors and researchers scattered in noted research institutions, hospitals,
universities, and pharmaceutical companies. Also, investigation was extended to other top-secret CW units. No sooner had
the investigation had some conclusive clues than U.S. Army intervened and cut short the investigation. Ironically later the
investigation was shifted to focusing on a Communist painter named Hirasawas Sadamichi. He was wrongly taken as the culprit
of the Imperial Bank incident and sentenced to death only to be commuted to life imprisonment; he had to spend over 40 years
in prison obviously resulting from the U.S. intervention for the protection of Unit 731.
Investigation of SCAPs
Legal Section. Legal Section under the SCAP was entirely separated from the IPS. With offices throughout Japan, Legal Sections
investigation involved minor Japanese war criminals, so-called Classes B and C, and amassed mounting evidence of the activities
of Unit 731 and others like Unit 100 mainly through anonymous letters and reports. Legal Sections investigator Captain Neal
R. Smith had independently found much information concerning the atrocities of Unit 731, but he was not allowed to bring his
investigation to fruition. His report of April 1947 which was suppressed contained the following:
1. The purpose
of experimentation conducted by Unit 731 of the Kwantung Army was to infect POWs with germs followed by dissection. Participating
in the experimentation were Maj. Honji Yamaguchi, Maj. Gen. Yijiro Wakamatsu. Lt. Col. Yasuzaka, and Capt. Shiro Matsushida.
2. The real leader of BW experimentation was Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii. He was a big landlord. He planted a story in
a newspaper that he had been shot to death and on November 10, 1945 an elaborate funeral was staged in his home village Chiyoda,
thereby helping him to go underground.
3. Ishiis unit was established at Harbin in northeast China and in 1944
he was able to produce plague germs with which he conducted experiments on Chinese and American POWs. Cooperation with Ishii
came from the medical schools of Kyoto and Tokyo Universities and the Chiba Medical College involving scientists like Thmonosuke
Shoji, Suhito Yoshimura, and Norio Ogata.
4. Ishiis secret unit located on the Hailar railway line near the Peiyin
River station used the code name Togo. Its victims of experimentation, besides criminals, were farmers, women and children,
and POWs, numbering as high as over 3,000. The water filters and microscopes Ishiis unit used were bought from a Tokyo Special
Industry Company, a private ownership at first but later incorporated. Ishii and other high-ranking cadres of the unit became
share holders and made a windfall profit.
5. Several individuals from Hagi, Yamaguchi prefecture were willing to
testify that the Japanese army at Mengchiatun, Changchun, China [Unit 100] had used the POWs of the Allied Forces to substitute
for local rats in experiments, responsible for which were Yujiro Wakamatsu, Jiro Matsushita, Honji Yamaguchi and others.
6. Army veterinarian Maj. Gen. Yujiro Wakamatsu, Maj. Honji Yamaguchi, and Lt. Col. Yasuzaka conducted veterinary experiment
Changshun by using many POWs of the Allied Forces who were all dissected afterwards. Participants in the experiment involved
as many as scores of people.
7. Ishii used the POWs of the Allied Forces for experimentation many times. After the
Japanese surrender, he destroyed all evidence of his experiments and activities, as he knew his crime was too great to be
forgiven and even tried to bribe the person in charge of his investigation.
8. The 2nd department of Veterinary Disease
Prevention Unit 100 also conducted human experimentation with Hongji Yamaguchi in charge later replaced by Taro Yasuzaki.
All the victims after experiments were dissected.
9. Ryoichi Naito who had been interrogated was a military medical
doctor with the rank of lieutenant colonel working with the Tokyo Military Medical College. All bacteriologists in Japan
were more or less connected with Ishii. In their inner circle, that Ishii conducted human experiments had become an open secret.
10. Tomosada Masuda admitted the secret research center was located at Pingfang, 24 km from Harbin with Kiyoshi
Ota, Tsuneshige Ikari, and Shiro Ishii taking charge of experiment chiefly in bacterial bomb.
Unquestionably Legal
Sections investigation had some adverse effect on the U.S. Army attempt at covering up Unit 731. Pursuant to MacArthurs instruction,
Maj. Gen. Charles Willoughby, Chief of G2 issued a directive to Legal Section, items 3 and 4 of which are quoted below:
(3) The investigation should proceed under the guidance of Joint Chiefs HQ and G2. All kinds of measures, interrogations,
and contacts of the investigation work must be taken with the Joint chiefs HQ. For the protection of the U.S. own interests
and safeguard against the unexpected, it must be kept as top secret.
(4) The investigation must follow the guideline:
(a) without the approval of G2, no statement or material be released to the public; (b) all anonymous reports and letters
aforementioned are listed as secret; (c) from now on all information collected will be handed over to G2; (d) if possible,
efforts should be made to gain more evidential documents and photos; and (e) from now on all interrogations must be conducted
under the direction of SCAPs Translation and Interrogation Division and at the Legal Sections Tokyo business office and all
instructions on investigation previously issued be withdrawn.
Clearly under this strict regulation, Legal Sections
investigation was perforce stopped, and hereafter the entire investigation work was taken into the hands of G2.
IV. Investigation on the Soviet Side
The thorniest problem with the American attempt to cover up Unit 731 was that
the Soviets also started the investigation with many members of Unit 731 captured by them in Manchuria. Considerable solid
evidence was in their hands and their investigation had almost reached the core of the issue. On January 9, 1947, the Soviet
Deputy Prosecutor of the IMTFE made a request to interrogate the following three persons: Shiro Ishii, Commander of Epidemic
Prevention and Water Purification Unit 731; Maj. Gen. Hitoshi Kikuchi, Chief of the 1St Department of Unit 731; and Col. Kiyoshi
Ota, Chief of the 4th Department of Unit 731 (he had headed the 2nd Department before). He also asked the American side to
provide for the addresses of Lt. Col. Asataka Murakami and Kanezo Nakatome, Chief of Administrative Department, both of Unit
731. On January 15, 1947, both sides met for a conference. Representing the U.S. was Lt. Col. R. P. McLaine and the Soviet
Union was Col. Lev Nicholaevish Smirnov. At the conference, the Americans began to realize the Soviet knew the activities
of Unit 731 more than the U.S. They had figures for human experiments and productivity, whereas the U.S. only knew it had
engaged in human experiments. Under pressure of the Soviet demand for interrogation of Ishii and others, Gen. MacArthur cabled
Washington for decision on February 10. On March 21, MacArthur received a message from the Joint of Chiefs of Staff granting
permission for Soviet interrogations, subject to all the qualifications and reservations: (1) Prior to their meeting with
the Soviets, Ishii, Ota, and Kikuchi must be interrogated by the Americans, for which an expert from the War Department will
be sent (this man was Dr. Norbert H. Fell, Division Chief of Camp Detricks Planning Pilot-Engineering Section, who arrived
in Tokyo in late April 1947); (2) no important information about BW be divulged to the Soviets; and (3) they should not mention
to the Soviets about the U.S. interview.
The Americans procrastinated the Soviet interrogations with Ishii and others
for months until mid-May. In the meantime, Ishii and other Japanese experts provided Fell with enough information which the
Americans found to be most useful. Ishii promised to write a detailed account of his twenty years of BW experience and wished
to be hired by the U.S. as a BW expert, while boasting his ideas about strategic and tactical use of BW weapons in the preparation
of war against the Soviet Union. 19 Japanese BW experts compiled a 60-page report on BW and a 200-page report on experimentation
on the destruction of crops. Besides, 10 Japanese scientists prepared a report on bubonic plague experiments and some 8,000
pieces of slides and photomicrographs along with 600 pages of printed articles. But Ishii insisted on that he would give
the Americans the full knowledge of BW, if a documentary immunity for himself, superiors, and subordinates could be given.
By then the U.S. succeeded in securing more invaluable information on BW from the Unit 731 experts on the one hand and preventing
from prosecuting them on the other. Over the Soviet demand for extraditing Ishii and others, the Soviet-American relations
almost reached a breaking point only to be averted with the Soviet conceding.
V. U.S. Guilt and Responsibility
of Exonerating Japanese BW Units
Tantalized by Ishiis promise to supply full information on BW, Gen. MacArthur sent
a five-part radio message to Washington on May 6, 1947, detailing his knowledge of Unit 731, particularly human experimentation.
The most crucial point of his message appeared in Part 3B which reads,
Additional data, possibly including some statements
from Ishii, probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels
and will not be employed as war crimes evidence.
MacArthur accentuated his point further in Part 3C by saying that
complete story to include plans and theories of Ishii and superiors, probably can be obtained by documentary immunity to Ishii
and associate. The May 6 dispatch put Washington in a serious dilemma. The SWNCC needed to know what evidence of war crimes
in possession of U.S. authorities against Ishii and others. Col. Carpenter, Chief of Legal Section, responded in his June
7 dispatch assuring Washington that the reports and files of the Legal Section on Ishii and his co-workers do not reveal sufficient
evidence to support war crime charges, and he hastened to add that the Soviet may have obtained sufficient evidence that could
lead to the Allies to conduct investigation in Manchuria and Japan. He was of the opinion that U. S. must make decision quickly
so as to avoid the danger of publicity of BW data.
On July 1, 1947, two American scholars, Edward Wetter and H.
I. Stubblefield, submitted U. S. Department of War and Department of State a report titled Interrogation of Certain Japanese
by Russian Prosecutor. This restricted report pointed out that only a small portion of Japanese BW technique and information
had fallen into the Soviet hands and that if Ishii and others were prosecuted, all secret data would be made public to all
nations. These two scholars and other scholars related to the Central Intelligence Agency recommended that for the interest
of defense and national security, a public trial of Japanese BW should be avoided. At last, on September 8, 1947, the State
Department which had reservations on granting war crime immunity to Unit 731 which may cause embarrassment to the U.S. in
the future now conceded in its cable to MacArthur that the information provided by Ishii and others should be kept in the
intelligence channels, not to be employed as evidence in the war crime trial. The State Department also gave specific instruction
for handling the case: (1) To Ishii and the related Japanese, the Supreme Commander should not make any promise, but continue
to collect BW data as much as possible; (2) unless the U.S. measure of concealing the information be uncovered at the IMTFE
trial or the criminal evidence of Ishii and others be brought into the open, the present way of collecting information would
be kept; and (3) although no written assurance of immunity for war crimes be granted to Ishii and others, American authorities
considering security reasons would not prosecute Ishii and his colleagues for their war crimes.
To evaluate the data
provided by Ishii, U.S. War Department dispatched two Detrick leading bacteriologists, Edwin V. Hill and Joseph Victor, to
Japan in October 1947. They interviewed 19 Japanese BW experts and submitted their findings in a report to Gen. Alden C.
Waitt, Chief of Chemical Corps, on December 12 saying:
Evidence gathered in this investigation has greatly supplemented
and amplified previous aspects of this field. It represents data which have been obtained by Japanese scientists at the expenditure
of many millions of dollars and years of work. . . . These data were secured with a total outlay of Y250,000 ($700). . .
. It is hoped that individuals who voluntarily contributed this information will be spared embarrassment because of it and
that every effort will be taken to prevent this information from falling into other hands.
Hill and Victor also were
entrusted with the task to determine whether MacArthur had made the best possible bargain with the Japanese group. Now all
members of the SWNCC seem to have been convinced that the BW information is of such importance to the security of this country
that the risk of subsequent embarrassment should be taken. However, not until March 1948, when the Tokyo Trial was winding
up its work and no further evidence would be accepted at the hearings, did the Joint Chiefs of staff on the recommendation
of the SWNCC cabled MacArthur asking him to resubmit his HQs recommendation concerning placement of BW information in intelligence
files and no prosecution against Ishii and his associates.
So Ishii and all others involved in BW and human experiments
were free and not prosecuted. Throughout the two and a half years Tokyo Trial, except for the problem of indicting Emperor
Hirohito, the indictment of Japanese BW units was also a recurring issue that stirred the Japanese society. However, when
David N. Sutton, an American assistant to the Chinese prosecutors made his startling revelations about BW Unit 1644 at Nanking
at the Tokyo trial on August 29, 1946, it created a stir in the court. Chief Justice Sir William F. Webb, an Australian, asked
Sutton: This is a new fact that you have presented before we judges. How about letting this item go? Sutton replied: Well
then, Ill leave it. It took less than ten minutes to close the BW hearing.
IV. Concluding Remarks
Long before the Tokyo trial opened on May 3, 1946, Col. Morrow of IPS had learned that Unit &31 was engaged in BW in China.
soon he was silenced and his report has disappeared ever since. Moreover, long before Morrows investigation, U. S. Intelligence
had amassed enough information about Japanese BW and had no intention to expose it but tried to gain more information for
itself. To get ahead of the Soviet Union in the BW, the U.S. succeeded in making a deal with Ishii and his subordinates to
exonerate them from war crimes in exchange for their human experimentation data, regardless of possible legal or moral embarrassment
in the future.
Aside from the human experiment data being too valuable and important to the U.S. military, there
was another reason that may have had some bearing on MacArthurs decision not to prosecute Unit 731, i.e., the relations between
Emperor Hirohito and BW units. It had been known to the Russians that Unit 731 was established by the edict of the Emperor.
Later in 1936 and 1940, he again issued edicts for its expansion. Further, his cousin, Prince Tsuneyoshi Takada served as
chief staff officer for operation in the Kwantung Army. In 1943 he was lieutenant colonel in charge of liaison affairs between
the Kwantung Army and Unit 731; he alone issued passes to Unit 731 and once accompanied the Commander-in-Chief Umezu, Chief
of Staff Lt. Gen. Heitaro Kimura, and Chief of the Medical Administration Lt. Gen. Ryuiji Kajitsuka to visit Unit 731 at Pingfang.
All these facts were recorded in the proceedings of the Soviet Khabarovsk Trial staged in the last week of 1949. Although
whether MacArthur knew this or when he knew it cannot be ascertained, he should have been well aware that the establishment
of Unit 731 and its use against the Chinese and the planned massive BW against the Soviet as a last resort of the war must
have had the approval of the Emperor. MacArthur was so adamant that Emperor Hirohito would not be tried, nor brought to stand
as a witness in the court. It is reasonable to assume that any case like Unit 731 linked with the Emperor would not be allowed
to surface in the court which might jeopardize his smooth rule of Japan. According to associates on Keenans staff, MacArthur
told the chief Allies prosecutor that the emperor was not only off limits as a defendant, but also as a witness at the trial.
Had not the Soviet Union held the Khabarovsk Trial, no war criminals of Unit 731 would have been brought to justice.
In spite of the Soviet intention to hold the trial in the climate of Cold War being doubted, the Trial did fill some gap
the Tokyo Trial regrettably omitted and has helped to keep the issue of Unit 731 alive.
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