During the trial, the Japanese imperialists admitted to their use of bacteriological weapons in the Pacific Asia War. Employing bacteriological weapons directly violated the Geneva Protocol of 1925 that was agreed to internationally. Primarily it was a “Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare.” The Japanese military branches, meanwhile, included facilities to produce bacteriological weapons in an efficient, fast-paced manner. As Sato described during the interrogation of December 6th, 1949, “The output capacity of the Nanking Detachment Ei 1644 for the production of lethal bacteria was up to 10 kilograms per production cycle. To produce this quantity of bacteria, Detachment Ei 1644 had the following equipment: Ishii cultivators, about 200; incubator room, 1, dimensions 5X5X3 meters; 2 cylindrical autoclaves, 1.5 meters in diameter and 2.5 meters long; incubators, about 40-50; steam sterilizers, 40-50, Koch Boilers, about 40-50, and for cooking media, the detachment had large retorts, but how many I do not remember.” |
According to testimonies during the trial, a special bacteriological expedition commanded by General Ishii Shiro was dispatched to the theater of hostilities in Central China and Eastern China. According to the trial, the defendant Karasawa Tomio stated, “... In the latter half of 1940, I was instructed by my immediate superior, Major Suzuki, to prepare 70 kilograms of typhoid bacteria and 50 kilograms of cholera bacteria. Major Suzuki told me that he had received instructions to prepare the bacteria from the Chief of the detachment, General Ishii, who was getting ready to organize a special expedition from the detachment to employ bacteria against the Chinese army... I carried out these orders. At the same time, I learned from personnel of the 2nd Division that that Division had bred five kilograms of plague-infected fleas as the carriers of this infection for the use of General Ishii’s expedi tion. In September 1940, General Ishii, accompanied by a group of other officers of the detachment, left for Hankow, from which they returned in December 1940. The officers who had gone with General Ishii stated on their return to the detachment that the employment of plague infected fleas had yielded good results. The dissemination of the fleas had caused a plague epidemic. One of the members of the expedition, Major Nozaki, showed me in proof of this a Chinese newspaper containing an article which reported that an outbreak of plague had occurred in the Nimpo area. The author of the article correctly concluded that the epidemic had been caused by the Japanese, since eyewitnesses had seen a Japanese plane flying over this area and dropping something from a low altitude. I read this article myself.” |
The Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial:
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The Japanese Empire and USSR in WW2
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Planning of Japan invasion to USSR
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