6 in WWII Japanese Army Group Describe Atrocities

Fifty years after the end of World War II, six former members of a biological warfare unit in the Japanese Imperial Army have come forward to tell of atrocities that included live human dissections.

The new testimony comes in a 74-page book, “The Truth About Unit 731,” published Friday by a small citizens’ group in Japan’s northern state of Iwate.

Researchers say Unit 731, based in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, killed at least 3,000 people from China, Russia, Korea and Mongolia in top-secret experiments.

The victims were subject to horrid abuse: given shrapnel-induced gangrene, injected with germs, poisoned with chemicals or operated on without anesthesia--all in the name of medical research.

Historians say U.S. officials agreed not to bring war crimes charges against Unit 731 leaders in exchange for information about their experiments. First-hand testimony about the unit has been slim.

All of the six men quoted in the book are letting their experiences be published for the first time, said Ryuji Takahashi, who gathered the reminiscences from men in Iwate.

One 72-year-old man, who refused to have his name published, says in the book that he witnessed unit members conduct many human vivisections.

The man had to return to Japan in 1943, at the height of the war, because he became infected by the germs being tested, Takahashi said.

Another Iwate man, 71-year-old Takeo Sano, said he witnessed experiments in contaminating water supplies. “A military doctor put germs in a well. In a Mongol tent nearby, people were continually getting sick.”

The book also contains second-hand testimony linking Unit 731 to the Japanese kamikaze suicide bombers who terrorized Allied forces toward the end of the war.

A former unit member is quoted as saying he heard another unit team developed a special stimulant that was added to sake , the rice wine traditionally downed by kamikaze pilots before their missions.

The stimulant apparently helped pilots get excited and put aside their fears. The source, however, refused to give his name, saying he only heard about the drug from a leader of the team that supposedly developed it.

Takahashi said the men came forward after seeing an exhibition about Unit 731 that traveled throughout Japan during the last 18 months.