MIM Notes 224   December 15, 2000

Japanese World War II veterans describe brutality and germ warfare

Two Japanese World War II veterans testified in a Japanese court 
on November 15 about the human experiments and germ warfare they 
participated in during World War II. Unit 731, to which both 
witnesses belonged, aimed most of its brutality at the Chinese 
people. One hundred and eighty Chinese whose family members were 
murdered are suing the Japanese government for compensation, and 
for an official apology. MIM Notes also reported on this case 
several years ago.(5)

One Unit 731 veteran admitted to performing vivisections on 
civilians in northern China without anesthesia and said that the 
military referred to the people it cut open as "logs." The 77-year 
old veteran stated, "I remember using the word as we compared how 
many logs we cut that day with other unit members."(1) This same 
witness testified to mass producing cholera, dysentery and typhoid 
germs in Harbin in 1940. The Japanese fascist army used these 
germs in the Nomonhan clash with Soviet troops and in southern 
China in the 1940s. Another former Unit 731 pilot said he spread 
plague-infected fleas in Hangzhou in 1940 and in Nanjing in 
1941.(1)

Following World War II, the united $tates declined to prosecute 
high-ranking Unit 731 officers, including the unit's founder, 
Ishii Shiro, despite its knowledge of the unit's "human 
experimentation, field trials against Chinese... [and] research on 
[Biological Warfare] by crop destruction."(2) In return for this 
protection and its efforts to keep Unit 731 secret, the united 
$tates received exclusive access to the unit's "research." 

According to the Chinese, Koreans, Soviets, and the persynal 
testimony of captured Amerikan pilots, the united $tates conducted 
germ warfare during the Korean War similar to that practiced by 
Unit 731. Furthermore, according to the united $tates own records, 
over 2,000 Amerikans suffered from hemorrhagic fever during the 
war -- a disease that is not endemic to Korea and happened to be 
one of the specialties of Unit 731. Former Unit 731 members were 
in Korea at the time of the outbreak. Apparently the Amerikans 
used the biological warfare techniques developed by Unit 731 
against the Koreans and Chinese, only to have it backfire.(3)

These gruesome details remind us of the brutality of fascist 
forces during World War II, and Amerika's opportunism in dealing 
with the defeated fascist powers. Amerika's protection of 
reactionary ultra-nationalists in Asia, Germany, and Eastern 
Europe set back the cause of peace -- and it is coming back to 
bite Amerika in the ass. See for example the article on the 
resurgence of Baltic Nazism in this issue. The communists were the 
most consistent anti-fascist forces in World War II (e.g. the 
Soviets did publicize the crimes of Unit 731 and tried the war 
criminals from the unit they could get their hands on).(4)

The imperialists' awful crimes make it clear to the broad masses 
that compromise with such beasts is suicide and will strengthen 
the resolve of anti-imperialist revolutionaries around the world.

Notes:
1. Boston Globe November 16, 2000, p.A-26
2. Hal Gold, ITAL Unit 731: Testimony, END Tokyo: YENBOOKS, 1996, 
P. 110.
3. Ibid, pp. 123-126.
4. Ibid, pp. 113-115.
5. MIM Notes 145, 1 Sep 1997