a, OUT eh ED WTERNATIONAL LAW ‘THIS is the story of rats, fleas and-meny—of certain men, that is, so morally de- graded that in comparison the rats and vermin are good ‘company. Dr. Hans Zinsner once wrote a highly readable book entitled Rats, Lice and His- tory, in which he related the long and tragic story of the typhus plague, its vast toll in lives, and mankind’s progressively success- ful fight against it. The scientists whose ceaseless work gave hu- manity the weapons with whith to fight the plague were the heroes ‘of the doctor’s story. My story is different. It is the story of science put to a diametri- Cally opposite use. It is the story of scientists who spent their hours in the laboratory turning man- ‘kind’s knowledge of medicine, of Plagues and germs, to devising weapons for the painful extermin- ation of masses of human beings. It opens, for our. purposes, in the courthouse/of the City of Kha- Sees barovsk, the USSR, in December, 1949, where 12 Japanese war crim- ‘imals of the Kwantung army were ‘On trial. The witness was Matsumura ' Who identified himself as the _ former Japanese chief of opera- tions division. “I was connected with the work of bacteriological detachments 751 and 100 of the Kwantung army,” he said.’ “In 1945,” said the witness, “practically all the land units of the Kwantung army, engaged in trapping rats and delivering them to detachment 731. It follows quite Raturally that this work was sanc- tioned by the Commander-in-Chief Yamada. Detachment 731 heeded the rats to breed fleas designated for the spread of Plague germs.” : A-few days later, the trail of these rats was picked up in the 5 testimony of witness Hotta. E “The chief of the quartermas- ter’s section, Major Sato, ordered Me to calculate the quantity of feed ana nutritive substances that Would be required for 3,000,000 ro- dents that were to be bred by September,” said Hotta. “Thus,” the prosecutor asked, “General Ishii counted on raising he number of rats and mice in Bea tilidn search worker, Minata, was sent to prisoner-of-war camps where GIs were held to test the proper- ties of the blood and immunity to contagious diseases of Ameri- can soldiers, 7 The gruesome facts of Japanese preparation for germ warfare— and of Japan’s “field experiments” —were recently made accessible here for the first time with the publication in English of the pro- ceedings of the Khabarovsk trial. The book is entitled Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen From another book, Peace and Pestilence by an American, Dr. Theodor Rosebury, we learn that the military establishment of the United States government is also making preparations to engage in germ warfare. Rosebury was him- self chief of the airborne infec- tion project at U.S. Biological Warfare headquarters at Camp Detrick, near Frederick, Mary- land. Apparently for “security” rea- sons, Rosebury relies on published government documents for his ma- terial, a fact which suggests that had he exploited his own experi- BY ROB F HALL _ planning germ warfare? in central China in 1940, 1941 and the possession of the detachment to 3,000,000 by September, 1945, is that right? “Yes, that was his plan,” said Hotta. co More revolting details were el- aborated in the testimony of one_ of the accused, Major General Ka- washima, a doctor of medicine, who headed the fourth or “pro- ductive division” of bacteriological warfare “detachment 731.” About seven miles from Har- bin, his germ “factory” was set up. The infected fleas were placed in incubators along with the rats upon whose blood they fed. Every three or four months, Kawashima said, they produced 30,000,000 bil- lions of microbes. Nor did they confine themselves to plague, or typhus, germs. They also produced, in quantity lots, germs for cholera, anthrax, gland- ers, typhoid and dysentery. For the dissemination of the plague-ridden fleas, General Ishii, who is now in Japan, invented the _ Ishii porcelain bomb which ex- plodes 300 feet above the ground. Although planes were believed the most effective way to prose- cute bacteriological warfare, Gen- eral Ishii and his staff also relied on individual action by Japanese ‘saboteurs. Fountain pens and walking sticks were designed from. which the deadly poison could be squirted into water supplies or on vegetation upon which live- stock fed. : Evidence was submitted that the Japanese employed BW ,as bac- teriological warfare is designated) in 1939 when they retreated from .Khalkin Gol after their provoca- tive attacks had been effectively thrown back by the Soviet Army. There was also testimony, sup- ported by documents, that the Japanese practiced germ warfare 1942, : Kawashima said he learned the details of the 1941 expedition when he heard a report from its com- manding officer. “Colonel Oota made a report... to the effect that the expedition had dropped plague fleas from an airplane in the Changteh area, and that an outbreak of plague epidemic had resulted.” In 1942 operations were carried out in the area of Yushan and two other cities. “I learned after the operation,” the officer testi- fied, “that plague, cholera, and paratyphoid germs were employ- ed .against the Chinese by spray- ing. The plague germs were dis- seminated through fleas, the other germs in pure form—by contam- inating reservoirs, wells, ete. I know the operation was ...a complete success.” “I myself,” one witness said, “in- fected water sources ... with the germs of typhoid and paratyphoid supplied by aircraft of detachment 731. ... By order of Major Gen- eral Ishii, 3,000 rolls were baked. These rolls were infected with the germs of typhoid and para- typhoid and handed out to Chi- nese prisoners of war who, after they were infected, were let out of camp in order to spread the infectious disease. . . . I know that as a result of the infection we caused in Chekang ‘province, an epidemic of typhoid broke out.” The feverish preparations in 1945 to increase the production of rats, fleas and germs, the defen- dants admitted, was in anticipa- tion of war with the USSR. All arrangements were made to carry on large scale BW operations in the cities of the Soviet Far East. Ishii told his staff also that BW operations against the U.S, and Britain was inevitable. A re- ences, the story he would be far more horrifying. But as it stands, it is horrifying enough. In some ways the U.S. Army technique is far ahead of that of the Japanese. The use of fleas and rats is regarded as old fashioned by the Camp Detrick experimenters who prefer an air- borne infective agent. That is, they have concentrated on germs or toxic poisons which, sprayed in the air, will infect when the victim breathes them. Further- more, the infective agent should be one for which there is no easy cure and which is impossible or at least difficult to detect. Panic among civilians is one of the objectives of BW, Dr. Rose- bury says, and it is indeed hard to conceive of a situation more conducive to panic than hundreds of thousands of women and chil- dren falling sick and dying in agony from some mysterious ail- ment which comes silently from the skies. The Americans at first dismiss- ed typhus, the favorite of the Jap- anese. But recently they learned © that it too might be rendered air- borne by drying infected louse excrement. How far they have proceeded with this particular ex- periment Dr. Rosebury does not say. ; e ‘ Rosebury has made a singular contribution to those fighting for peace both here and abroad by his revelations ‘concerning U.S. preparations for biological war- fare. His book contains vital facts which everyone should know. But his service is somewhat vitiated by the peculiar and un- realistic attitude he adopts toward the question of international con- trols. Rosebury is opposed to war. Apparently he hopes, by revealing the horrors of germ war (which PACIFIC TRIBUNE—AUGUST 25, 1950—PAGE has to tell #1 he does deadpan and with no ex- pressions of indignation) to win new recruits to the peace camp. Rosebury takes the very fatal- istic position that if war comes, Weapons of mass destruction such as the atomic bomb, germs and Poison gas, will inevitably be em- ployed. He sees no means for preventing their use except by pre- venting war. Furthermore, he ar- gues, it is war, not these weapons, which are immoral. This has a deceptive illogic. It recalls Secretary of State Ache- son’s remark recently that the kind of weapon used is % in- cidental.” “a d is a reality, no nation need feel the slightest restraint about using the most dreadful and inhumane < owledge that, like chemical and atomic weapons, bacteriological weapons are ee moreover, | inhuman means, principally because the victims of these why in condemning : war in general, the whole of at a gTessive mankind particularly con- _ warfare, and demands the pr oe hibition of these means of wa >. ae principles of humanity.” _ Dr. Rosebury, in a brief review of the United Nations delibera- tions of atomie controls, elevates himself to the highest ivory tower _ and then deals out even-handed blame to the United States and to the USSR for the failure to reach agreement, In this, he is both superficial and wrong. He misses fundamental Point that nee having a free hand to employ ; dreadful weapon it wishes The Japanese wanted a mass by facts cited by Dr. Rosebury himself, although — it seems he missed their signifi- cance: a Z but also, specifically, States. On April 8, 1946, Truman withdrew it from the Senate...” ete L Sem Perhaps the Truman adminis- tration’s plans. in respect to : explain why it rebuffed the Soviet Union’s proposals that Emperor Hirohito, and the generals Ishii, Kitano, Wakamatsu and Kasa- mara, now in U.S. hands, be forced to stand trial as war criminals for their part in Japanese biolo- gical warfare. Perhaps General Ishii, the creator of Japan’s vast ‘BW apparatus, is even now busy in a laboratory in Tokyo or—who knows?—at Camp Detrick, plying his old and horrible trade!