[In-Depth] Japan's Green Cross Causing 2,000 AIDS Infections and the Shadow of Unit 731 (Part 2)

Japan Green Cross, Successor to Blood Bank of Unit 731 Instructor
Unit 731 Withdrawal Using Express Trains and Airplanes
Shameless Military Doctors Even After the War... Some Committed Suicide
Bone-Chilling Reflection of Kanto Army Operations Staff Endo

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*Following <"It took years to accept that being executed was inevitable" (excerpt)>

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*Manchukuo was established on March 1, 1932, by the Kwantung Army, an elite unit of the Japanese Army. It existed in the four northeastern provinces of China until Japan's collapse in World War II. It was not an independent country officially announced by the Japanese government domestically or internationally. On the surface, the last emperor of the Qing dynasty, Aisin Gioro Puyi, was placed on the throne, but the actual ruler was the Japanese Emperor. The Kwantung Army commander, who swore absolute loyalty to him, controlled all governing bodies of Manchukuo as his proxy. In effect, it was a continental version of the 'Japanese Empire.' The vast territory served as Japan's continental military base. The Kwantung Army used it as a frontline base to launch a full-scale invasion into Soviet territory.

*Japan, an island nation lacking natural resources, faced mass unemployment in cities and poverty in rural areas due to the global depression. The Japanese government focused on Manchuria as a land of opportunity to solve these difficulties. They relocated large numbers of settlers. The Kwantung Army sent armed settlers or youth volunteer corps to underpopulated areas to handle defense. However, defending a territory more than three times the size of Japan required enormous military expenses and vast war resources. By 1936, they faced limits. Around that time, the Soviet Union strengthened the transportation capacity of the Siberian Railway and increased defensive troops from Siberia to the Maritime Province. As a result, the military gap between Japan and the Soviet Union widened year by year. To overcome this difficult situation, Japan focused on building permanent underground fortresses and developing biological weapons.

*Endo Saburo, appointed as the Kwantung Army's operations chief of staff, studied at the French Army College in the late 1920s, engaging in the development and research of special weapons including poison gas. Upon his assignment to Manchukuo, he immediately established close ties with Unit 731. He attempted to use biological weapons during the Nomonhan Incident. The Nomonhan Incident began when Mongolian cavalry crossed the border to let their horses drink from the Halha River flowing through the Nomonhan grasslands. It was not merely a battle between Japan's puppet Manchukuo forces and the Soviet puppet Mongolian forces but escalated into a conflict between the Kwantung Army and Soviet troops behind the scenes. Endo was dispatched to the battlefield in September 1939 when the Japanese army was losing many soldiers in hand-to-hand combat and defeat seemed certain. Upon arrival at the grasslands, he desperately tried to negotiate a ceasefire with the Soviet forces. After signing a ceasefire on the 16th and buying time, Endo insisted that the Kwantung Army should no longer continue operations against the Soviet Union. However, the young staff officers of the Kwantung Army remained confident, demanded further Soviet operations, and eventually isolated Endo, who opposed them. Endo tried to use central authority to stop additional attacks but was instead regarded by the Kwantung Army's upper echelon as a cowardly general suffering from 'Soviet phobia.' In this desperate situation, he visited Ishii Shiro of Unit 731, viewing biological weapons as a trump card to reverse the military disadvantage. However, he was informed that the weapons had not yet reached a practical stage and resisted, risking his military career to avoid war with the Soviet Union.

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*In his postwar book 'The 15-Year Sino-Japanese War and I,' Endo criticized Ishii Shiro as "a man who embraced both Buddha and the devil." Yet, he was also one of those who ultimately succumbed to the devil's whisper. Endo once felt responsible as a war leader and contemplated suicide. However, persuaded by his family, he regained his composure and moved to an undeveloped area in Saitama Prefecture. He spent days of repentance while running a farm. Then, in February 1947, he was identified as a war crime suspect and imprisoned in Sugamo Prison. After his release, he undertook pioneering efforts to normalize diplomatic relations with the new Chinese government. In 1956, he led former soldiers to visit the Fushun War Criminals Management Center. He met Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and others to ask for forgiveness for his crimes. Japanese media focused on his dramatic ideological transformation, extensively reporting his theories and activities advocating pacifism and Article 9 of the Constitution (renunciation of war).

*Endo passed away in October 1984 at the age of ninety-one. Later, journalist Yoshida Hiroshi described Endo's life as follows: "It is deeply regrettable, but there are hardly any figures in Japan's political world today with the broad vision to face the history of war as Endo did. At eighty-eight, Endo greeted many acquaintances, intellectuals, and politicians gathered in Tokyo to commemorate the publication of his autobiography by saying, 'Old soldiers just fade away.' I believe that although the old soldiers have disappeared, their brilliant ideas have taken root and still live in the hearts of the Japanese people. War never brings good results. This is a lesson history teaches the world. Endo said, 'You must not give weapons to soldiers. If you give weapons, soldiers will want to use them.' This was an honest statement born from his bitter experience of having to consider the practical use of biological weapons."

*Research tracking war crimes committed by Japanese medical scientists and doctors requires painstaking effort because the Japanese government does not disclose related materials. At a U.S. Congressional hearing in September 1986, a U.S. government official stated that confiscated materials had been returned to the Japanese government in April 1958. However, during related discussions in the Japanese Diet in 1997, Sato Ken, Director of the Defense Agency's Defense Bureau, stated: "The Defense Research Institute holds about 40,000 documents. To my knowledge, there are no materials showing the activities of Unit 731, officially known as the Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department, or its connection to biological warfare. There were four documents mentioning the Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department, but none revealed the unit's activities or links to biological warfare."

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*Asaeida Shigeharu, operations chief of staff, upon hearing of the Soviet invasion of Manchuria on August 9, 1945, prepared to conceal Unit 731. He believed that if the unit, which used 10 million yen of national funds annually without parliamentary approval or audit, became known, it could harm even the Emperor. He immediately sent a telegram to Ishii Shiro: "Instructions regarding your unit's disposition will be given soon; wait tomorrow at the Shinjing military airfield." He also ordered Lieutenant Colonel Takei, head of the Army Ministry's Transportation Division, to prepare a special express train for Unit 731's withdrawal. Asaeida met Ishii inside the hangar at Shinjing military airfield and talked standing for about an hour. The instructions included five main points: erase all evidence; convert maruta (human test subjects) into bones and ashes, then transport and dispose of them by truck; transport fifty medical scientists first to the Japanese mainland by bomber; evacuate all unit members by train without exception; and deploy a company of engineers from the prearranged 149th Division to destroy all facilities. Ishii persistently asked if he could take the research data until just before the plane departed.

*On August 11, 1945, thirty-three train cars arrived on the exclusive Unit 731 railway. The first group boarded in order from the Dogo village office to Hodong and withdrew. Remaining soldiers killed all maruta the next day and blew up the buildings. Education department soldiers departed Pingfang Station on the last train at 7 p.m. on August 14. Ishii photographed the destroyed unit site from the air to report to the Imperial Headquarters. He rushed to the Dalian branch office to develop the film and on the 17th met Chief of Staff Matsumura Tomokatsu in Pyongyang to report the final situation.

*Lieutenant Colonel Karasawa Toshio worked as the plague manufacturing section chief in Unit 731's 4th Department. He was a middle manager who directly contacted unit members from non-commissioned officers to soldiers. On August 17, 1945, he was disarmed under orders from Takedanomiya (staff officer Miyata) and became a Soviet prisoner of war in Fengtian on September 1. Like the Kwantung Army leadership, he was transferred to Khabarovsk. The Soviet army showed special interest in Unit 731 to raise biological warfare issues at the Tokyo Trials. Karasawa recalled: "Upon arrival in the Soviet Union, we were confined for about 40 days at a Communist Party senior official's villa on the Heilongjiang coast. They kept pestering us day and night about Ishii Shiro's unit. But when our claims that it was outside our jurisdiction all matched perfectly, they eventually gave up. Thanks to this collusion, we bought two years until the truth was uncovered."

*The Soviet Ministry of Internal Affairs extensively investigated the camps. They even deployed spies to find Soviet intelligence personnel, sabotage agents, and biological warfare researchers. They gathered about 100 people identified as biological warfare personnel in twenty-four camps in Khabarovsk and interrogated them.

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*Karasawa was interrogated at Camp 45. Initially, he pretended to be uninvolved, but when his former subordinate Sasaki Kosuke was arrested on Urup Island in the distant Kuril Islands, he could no longer hide his identity. He fully disclosed the realities of Unit 731, including human experiments. "I participated in this research... I actually don't want to talk about it, but if I don't, it will be a mental burden. I believe some Japanese soldiers have a duty to explain this research and experiments. Now, as a doctor practicing medicine for philanthropy, I want to fulfill that role."

*The Khabarovsk trial attracted over 1,000 spectators daily. The court proceedings were broadcast worldwide via Moscow radio. Karasawa was sentenced to 20 years in a corrective labor camp. He was imprisoned in Camp 48 in Cherntsi village, Ivanovo city, located 250 km northeast of Moscow.

*Following the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration, Karasawa was able to return home under a special pardon. However, shortly before, he died. He was found hanging from a rope tied to a laundry room pillar. His wife Toyoko speculated on his suicide: "He was not the type to live shamelessly after returning to the mainland. Rather than feeling sorry for his comrades, he probably thought the Japanese would never forgive what he had done. No matter how much he fulfilled his duties during the war or did it for the country, he might have thought it was an inexcusable matter."

*Yoshimura Hisato, who studied frostbite in Unit 731, left an autobiography titled 'Rare Disease Memoir' before his death. In chapters titled 'War Participation' and 'People Remaining in My Heart,' he recalled memories with his mentor and made excuses that the crimes committed by Unit 731's biological warfare unit were unavoidable. "Seeing soldiers fall and die from shells, I felt cruelty and painfully realized that my research on the battlefield was of no help. First, I had to survive somehow. Without survival, neither scholarship nor activities were possible. I strongly felt that physiology should first study how to endure natural threats and survive."

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*Yoshimura often spoke of the atrocities committed by Unit 731 as if they were someone else's problem, saying, "It was wartime. If you don't know, study." This is a common perception among most Japanese who participated in the war. They attribute all guilt-worthy acts to the situation of war and orders from superiors.

*After returning from China, Yoshimura participated in ice training at Lake Tofutsu in Hokkaido in 1956. Under the pretext of medical guidance as a member of the Antarctic observation team, he conducted extended experiments on frostbite human experiments originally performed in Unit 731, effectively continuing them as a national project under the guise of Antarctic observation.

*The Osaka Prefectural Medical Association is a group of 6,200 doctors mainly practicing in Osaka. At its regular general meeting in September 2000, reflecting on the 20th century and looking ahead to the next, it declared: "We deeply reflect on the fact that doctors were involved in Japan's aggressive wars in the 20th century and that some doctors committed inhumane crimes. We resolve to strive to make the 21st century a century of peace without nuclear weapons and war." However, most member doctors at the time were from the government-controlled Japan Medical Association, which was led by the president of the Japan Medical Corporation (established in 1942). Many had served as military doctors on battlefields and were detained in Siberia before returning. It is true that most doctors and medical scientists were puppets under the Emperor system and militarism during the war and were mobilized regardless of their will. This ultimately played a significant role in dominating other countries and peoples. Of course, many doctors and medical scientists were deeply involved in inhumane crimes such as biochemical weapon development and human experiments represented by the Kwantung Army's Unit 731, biological dissection of U.S. prisoners of war at Kyushu University, management of military comfort women, and opium policies for invading China.

*In the fall of 1983, many materials related to Unit 731, including the 'Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department Research Report,' were discovered in a secondhand bookstore in Kanda, Tokyo. The media reported this, causing a great shock in Japanese society. Records of six experiments bore the name of Army Medical Lieutenant Ikeda Naeo. He became publicly known earlier, in October 1981, when the Mainichi Shimbun published interviews titled 'I Did Human Experiments: Confession of a Former Military Doctor of the Bacterial Unit,' 'Acknowledgment of Immunity Negotiations with the U.S.,' and 'The Former Military Doctor of the Kwantung Army's Biological Unit Claims Human Experiments Were Wartime Common Sense, Only Fear Is War Crime Prosecution.' At that time, he was introduced as 'A former military doctor' without his real name. Journalists accessed this through American journalist John Powell's paper. Powell published a paper based on classified documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act, revealing that the U.S. traded immunity for Unit 731 and its members in exchange for biological experiment data. Using the military doctor's name in the paper as a clue, the Mainichi Shimbun found and interviewed a private practitioner named A living in Osaka city. This was Ikeda.

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*In an interview with the Mainichi Shimbun, Ikeda confessed, "During the war, I directly conducted human experiments infecting Chinese people with hemorrhagic fever virus." When asked what happened to those subjected to the experiments, he claimed, "There were severe cases in the experiments I was involved in, but all survived. An army officer colleague wanted to dissect these patients' bodies, but I refused." Regarding human experiments, he evaded responsibility, saying, "Hey, it was wartime. And after the war, it surely helped." Yet he also requested, "Honestly, I was always afraid the U.S. military would come to prosecute war crimes after the war. Never publish my name (in articles)." Ikeda worked as a private practitioner and also lectured at Osaka Prefectural Nursing School. He actively contributed papers to the Japanese Society of Infectious Diseases and the Osaka Medical Association.

*In August 1975, Ikeda contributed an article titled 'Reflections of an Old Doctor' to a special feature 'My Postwar History' in the Osaka Insurance Association magazine. He recalled, "When the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima City on August 6, 1945, I was a senior military doctor in the Army Ship Training Unit. Under the guidance of Lieutenant Colonel Yoshimura Nobuyoshi, commander of the Nakaji District Guard, I served as the sanitation captain of Nakaji District, treating about 2,000 miserable atomic bomb victims day and night. It is a sad memory I will never forget."

*In Japan, numerous incidents have revealed the collusion between postwar pharmaceutical companies and the Ministry of Health and Welfare, as well as the inhumanity of profit-driven corporations. A representative example is the AIDS infection incident caused by the use of non-heated blood products by Japan's Green Cross. Blood must be heat-treated to inactivate viruses, but Japan's Green Cross used non-heated blood products for hemophilia patients, resulting in HIV infections. From 1982 to 1986, about 2,000 hemophilia patients who received these non-heated blood products contracted AIDS. Japan's Green Cross is the successor to the Japan Blood Bank, founded by Naito Ryoichi, who researched plague in Unit 731 and served as an instructor at the Army Medical School, the central institution of Unit 731. Many former Unit 731 members were employed there.

*Many medical and pharmaceutical professionals and Unit 731 researchers agree that postwar Unit 731 personnel entered the vaccine manufacturing industry. However, few cases have been concretely verified. In fact, most literature does not clearly reveal the history from the war's end to the establishment of the Japan Blood Bank.

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*The Japan Blood Bank was founded in Choto Ward, Osaka City. On May 18, 1950, a founding general meeting was held at a ryotei (traditional Japanese restaurant). Participants included State Minister Okano Kiyohide, Director Hashimoto Shogo of Daigo Nutrition Chemistry, Director Nihonsugi Kinichi of Osaka Medical Association, Bank Manager Watanabe Tadao of Sanwa Bank, Bank Manager Okazaki Ju of Kobe Bank, Deputy Bank Manager Kobayashi Yoshio of Kobe Bank, former Army Medical School instructor Naito Ryoichi, President Futaki Hideo of the political magazine Seikai Jip, President Miyamoto Koichi of Japan Special Industry, and Councilor Maeda Matsunae of the Japanese Red Cross, totaling eleven people. Among them, Miyamoto, though not directly involved in Unit 731, was granted a monopoly by the Japanese government to produce water filters for Unit 731. He made huge profits during the war. He also manufactured ceramic bombs for biological warfare called Ujishiki bombs, devised by Ishii Shiro.

*One of the founders, former instructor Naito Ryoichi, was a key figure in Unit 731 and the Army Medical School. After the war, he served as director of Toshiba's Biological Chemistry Research Institute Niigata Branch. Later, he opened the Naito Clinic in Ibaraki City under his own name. Besides his medical profession, he was involved in various tasks, including serving as an interpreter when the U.S. investigated Unit 731. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, he led the establishment of the Japan Blood Bank based on dried human plasma technology researched at the Army Medical School.

*Toshiba, known as an electrical equipment manufacturer, produced vaccines and electron microscopes for a considerable period during and after the war. The company's Biological Chemistry Research Institute Niigata Branch was originally the Army Medical School Niigata Branch, established in April 1944. It conducted plague, cholera, typhus serum production, bacterial culture, and bomb manufacturing.

*Koyama Eiji, executive director of the Japan Blood Bank, worked at a military institution called 'Socks Headquarters' and researched the kambugi bacterium in Tanegashima, the facility's jurisdiction. The kambugi bacterium kills grains by drying them, effectively a secret weapon to damage enemy food supplies. It was planned to be spread using balloon bombs developed by Naito Ryoichi.

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*Noguchi Keiichi, director of the Japan Blood Bank Nagoya Plant, was assigned to Unit 731 at the recommendation of Kimura Ren, a professor at Kyoto Imperial University Medical School. As head of the Noguchi team in the 4th Department, he led research on freeze-dried plague and Vibrio vulnificus and vaccine development. After the war, Noguchi practiced as a private doctor in Nagoya and later became director of the Nagoya Plant at Naito Ryoichi's suggestion. He reportedly was asked by Naito in 1953, after the Korean War armistice, to sell leftover dried plasma supplied to the battlefield. Noguchi lent his name but was not involved in practical work. He had multiple opportunities to testify as a key figure in Unit 731 but never mentioned it.

*Futaki Hideo, chairman of the Japan Blood Bank, mainly researched tuberculosis in Unit 731. He conducted research and testing on tuberculin, vaccine production, and venereal diseases. After the war, he returned to his hometown Kanazawa and published the magazine Kyoron. In 1946, he moved to Tokyo and renamed the magazine Seikai Jip. Futaki ran unsuccessfully for the House of Councillors in 1953. From 1953 to 1956, he was arrested on charges of embezzling 64.35 million yen from nineteen companies including Nomura Securities. He was convicted and sentenced to three years in prison by the Supreme Court in 1969.

*One of the major shareholders of the Japan Blood Bank, Ishikawa Tachiomaru, studied pathology in Unit 731 and operated the Dalian Hygiene Research Institute. In July 1943, he returned to Japan and became a professor at Kanazawa Medical University. It is said that he secretly brought back 850 case samples secured in Manchuria. His father, Ishikawa Hidetsurumaru, was an emeritus professor at Kyoto University.

*Another major shareholder, Ota Sumi, was an early member involved from the initial stages of the Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention Department's formation. It is well known from many documents that Unit 731 conducted human experiments after establishing its base in the Pingfang area. Before that, in 1935 and 1936, Ota conducted two human experiments in the suburbs of Harbin. The first involved giving ten Chinese prisoners cyanide and measuring the time of death. The second was the same experiment with ten Russian prisoners. Ota served as head of Unit 731's 2nd and 4th Departments and commander of the Sakae 1644 Unit. His 2nd Department forcibly conducted human experiments using anthrax under the pretext of practical research. Records related to the 'Pell Report,' written by U.S. investigator Norbert Pell in 1947, include these activities. After the war, Ota returned to his hometown Hagi City in Yamaguchi Prefecture to practice medicine but committed suicide after his two daughters died.

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*After World War II, the U.S. occupation forces stationed in Japan were embarrassed when Soviet prosecutors demanded interrogation of Unit 731 personnel. "Japan's biological warfare data is extremely valuable for national security and more important than prosecuting 'war criminals.' (Omitted) Considering national security, prosecuting Japanese biological warfare experts as war criminals and allowing other countries to obtain that information is not a favorable strategy. (Omitted) The obtained information should be well kept within internal intelligence networks and not used as evidence for war crimes." This may explain why in the U.S., the stance was 'we don't know,' and in Japan, the public consciousness was 'we don't want to get involved.'

*Michael Franzblau, professor of dermatology at the University of California, emphasized, "Ignoring the Unit 731 issue is an act of Japanese doctors degrading their own dignity." Daniel Wikler, professor of public health at Harvard University, pointed out, "If the mistakes of past generations are concealed, the current generation must bear that burden. (Omitted) Moreover, the problems faced by the U.S. and Japan are also global issues."

References: 'The 15-Year War and Japanese Medical Research Association' edited by Saori Hasegawa - translated and published by Choi Kyu-jin, Health Media Cooperative 'Everyone Knows but No One Knows Unit 731 (2020)'; Kim Chang-kwon, publisher Nanumsa 'Accusing Japan's Kwantung Army Unit 731 (2014)'; War and Medical Ethics Verification Promotion Association, translated by Suzuki Akira, supervised by Lim Sang-hyuk, published by Health Media 'Unit 731 and Doctors (2015)'; Nishino Rumiko, translated by Korean Translation Institute, published by Yerimdang 'Stories of Unit 731 (1995)'; Jin Cheong-min, translated by Ha Sung-geum, published by Gyomunsa (Cheongmungak) 'Uncovering the Truth of Unit 731 Japanese Army Biological Warfare (2010),' etc.