By Asami Ohmoto, Tokyo
JOURNALIST Aimee Tsujimoto has researched war crimes committed by the Japanese Empire during the Asia-Pacific War (1931-45), focusing on the former Manchuria (now northeastern China), and compiled them into a series of three books.
The final volume of the trilogy, “The Truth about the Unit 731 ‘Shonen Corps’: 80 Years After the War” (in Japanese), was published last March. Tsujimoto emphasizes that boys aged 14 and 15 were involved in crimes by the notorious unit, which carried out various experiments on prisoners.
Unit 731, officially known as the Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department, was a unit of the Japanese army based in Heiho, a suburb of Harbin, Manchuria.
It conducted research, development, and testing of chemical and biological weapons, as well as their deployment in combat, all in violation of international laws on war. There were four other germ warfare units and a bacteriological unit that also developed infectious diseases of livestock as a form of biological warfare. Different units operated in various parts of Asia.
In a conversation, Tsujimoto told me that during her research for her earlier books, she found that few people associated with Unit 731 were willing to speak about the unit’s activities. She did find one person who testified that near the end of the war, he was involved in disposing of people called maruta (logs).
Tsujimoto said, “Using the word maruta for people in the book was very painful, but I dared to use it in line with historical facts. In other words, the unit members called prisoners of war from other countries, mainly Chinese, who were sent to the new facility of Unit 731 as maruta. They did not regard them as people but chopped up their bodies and repeated so-called biological experiments on them.”
To destroy evidence as the war was ending, all remaining maruta were murdered and their bodies were thrown into a hole prepared in advance. None survived to testify about the activities of Unit 731.
Tsujimoto interviewed a person who said that he was tasked with setting fire and cutting wood to burn bodies that had been thrown into the pit. He said that when he glanced up at the second-story window from which the bodies were being flung, he caught a glimpse of young boys. He told Tsujimoto, “I saw children through the window.”
He wondered why children were in such a place. All the people involved with Unit 731 and their families had been evacuated to Japan. He thought the children might have been separated from their families during the evacuation, or they could have missed the evacuation train. Still, the building was designed in such a way that children could not have accidentally entered it.
Tsujimoto continued, “He told me that even years after the defeat, only that scene remained in his mind. At the same time, he told me with a pained expression that this was the first time he had spoken about it. Thus, I learned about the existence of the Shonen Corps of Unit 731.”
“I wondered why there were children in that particular building. However, it was based on the testimony of only one person, and there was no way to verify it, so I could not include it in the earlier books. On the other hand, I had always wanted to write about the hidden facts of the war period as my life’s work, so as I researched the third book, I wanted to keep in mind that there was a Youth Corps associated with Unit 731,” she added.
As she continued her research, Tsujimoto felt an urgency to interview the shrinking number of people associated with Unit 731.
“Everyone was getting older, and I thought this would be my last chance. Among them, I came across a person who testified, ‘I carried .’ He was the very child that the earlier witness had seen, a small 14-year-old at the time. He told me, ‘After all the bodies of the prisoners were cremated, we 14-year-olds carried the bombs to blow up the facility.’”
Tsujimoto finally had confirmation of the initial story.
In 1937, the military began recruiting boys aged 14 to 15 who had graduated from high school to join the “Youth Corps” of Unit 731. The boys were enlisted without being told about the true purpose of Unit 731 and were sent to Manchuria as apprentice technicians. They never thought they would be forced to help in human experiments on prisoners. Some boys lost their lives as victims of bacterial tests.
“This was war,” said Tsujimoto. “I think it is meaningful to write this just to let people know about it. Above all, what the 14-year-old boys experienced was a lifelong burden that plagued them. How terrible war is!” – UCA News
