aR ad ca LEE ne. ES Rd ri | i ie ee i TET) Td Tt rt iti} BUTE ICE EE TEE Itt tie ee tat 1 ay YOU are a military | objective Nowhere . in the * world, amid the frenzied piling up of armaments for a new war, is it publicly admitted that woman .and children behind the enemy lines are now a mili- tary target, and their mass des- truction a military objective. Des- pite the warmongers silence this chilling fact is sober truth in the year 1950. Perhaps the Nazis started it. Their weapons were death-camps and gas-wagons and high-level terror bombing of residential areas. Perhaps they were first, but they were not alone, There were others then, and there are cthers today, preaching and pre- paring for a terror war. against civilians: building and perfecting the weapons — the atom-bombs, the “biological weapons — for to- qmorrow’s use. Not many people in this country have had the opportunity of read- ing the record of the trial of 12 Japanese who served in the Jap- anese Kwantung army. Canadian daily newspapers barely mention- ed the trial at the time — yet they now devote columns to the brazen Proposals of General MacArthur and others that the Japanese mili- tary machine which instructed these men in mass murder be re- constituted to serve American aims in Asia. The trial opened almost four years after Japan’s surrender, on December 25, 1949, in the Soviet town of Khabarovsk. The indict- ment charged that all the accused as members of the Japanese Army, had prepared bacteriological weapons for mass use during the war, had experimented with them on Soviet and Chinese prisoners, and had tried these weapons out in China and. Manchuria. e Here is the story as told by the accused themselves, under examination by. the prosecutor. The year is 1936, Japan flushed with imperialist success after the rape of Manchuria, prepares an invasion of China. By secret order of the Emperor, Hirohito,: two “top-secret” units of the Japanese Army are formed to prepare for and conduct bacteriological war- fare. To head these units is Lieut- General Ishii Shiro, well known in Japan “as a propagandist for a war of disease. All the 12 accused some voluntarily, some by orders from higher up serve with these units, known for reasons of. sec- recy as Detachment 731 and De- tachment 100. : The units work for 10 years under the direction of the com- mander-in-chief of the crack “Kwantung” army, which through- out the period is stationed on the Soviet border, training and pre- paring ideologically and militarily for an attack on the Soviet Union._ The units established “germ- factories” for mass production. of bacteria, behind heavy screens of barbed wire, armed guards and a “prohibited zone” through which only those with passes signed by the commander-in-chief personally can pass, By 1945, De- | tachment 731 alone has over 3,000 members. Under the sinister genius of Ishii, the .work goes forward. Germs are bred by the most up-to-date mechanized methods, with “flea nurseries” fed from some thousands of rats, “culti- vators” producing death-dealing germs in such quantities that they are measured out in kilograms. ' At the same time weapons for spreading the germs are being in- vented, tried out, remodelled and perfected; a special “Ishii” aerial bomb for dropping plague- infect- Ey ef Pk See en eeR ed fleas; fountain-pen and walk- ing-stick type sprayers for spread- ing cholera, gas-gangrene anthrax, typhoid or para-typhoid, But weapons must be tried out on testing grounds. Perhaps the heat of a bomb explosion might destroy the germs? Perhaps the germ-concentration from the sprayers would be too small to be effective? Perhaps the enemy might have some peculiar national and local resistance to one or other of the diseases? What*could ” be easier to a fascist than to try the weapons out on some live ma- terial, on something special in the way of testing grounds? The original army orders are with the trial records, “Special consignments” of prisoners are to be sent by the police to the Ishii Detachment’s special prison, These “special consignments” are to consist of persons “.... pro- Soviet and anti-Japanese-minded, ideological. criminals connected with the National and Communist movements,” and people guilty of hostile action against the govern- ment “when the nature of the offense gives grounds for the as- sumption that, if sent for trial, the person will be acquitted or given a light sentence.” One of the accused testified that at least 3,000 people came into the detachmen’s prison, All the accused testified that none ever came out save by the door that led to the crematorium. From the testing ground to the field of operations, In the sum- mer of 1940, under General Ishii’s command a special detachment flies to Nimpo in Central China. Five kilograms of plague-infest- ed fleas are droppéd in special porcelain bombs, and the accus- ed testify that their superiors considered the experiment a huge success. An epidemic of plague in Central China breaks out as planned. Again in 1942, in the area of Yushan and_ Kinha, during a Japanese retreat, plague-infect- ed fleas, cholera and para-ty- phoid germs are sprayed over water supplies, rivers and wells. The operation, the accused tes- tify, was “a complete success.” Three thousand bread-rolls, con- taminated with typhoid) and para-typhoid germs, are handed out at a Chinese prisoner-of-war camp and the prisoners are later released to spread the epidemic amongst the population at large. Cakes, in large numbers are scattered about under trees where Japanese soldiers had been eating their midday meal, and left for the local children to pick up. Para-typhoid, says one of the witnesses, was the most “successful.” In July, 1942, maneuvers of the detachment are held near the Soviet border, and Derbul River, for a stretch of one kilo- hictre, is systematically infected with glanders germs. The ground: in the region is scat- tered with anthrax germs. In 1944, in preparation for war with USSR, cattle and sheep in hundreds are bought, to be infected with anthrax when the war starts, and sent among the Manchurian and Russian stock to spread the disease. But history stopped all that. Before all the grandiose plans for mass extermination. by dis- ease could be carried out, the advance of the Red Army into Manchuria put the conspirators in a panic.. The factories were systemat- ically. destroyed by dynamite and fire by order of the high command. The equipment was shipped off to Korea for safe keeping. The personnel of De- tachments 731 and 100 were is- sued with potassium cyanide and told to committ “honorable sui- cide” rather than fall into Rus- sian hands. “But you did not commit col- lective suicide?” the accused were asked during the trial. “Japan surrendered and we received orders and sur- rendered in full order.” “Did any of your men com- rait suicide?” “One man did.” There is no doubt that all 12 deserved to hang. None did. Four will be in prison for 25 years, two for 20 years, one for 18, one for 15, one for 12, one 10, one three and one two. And what of the others? Hirohito, who gave the order fer the detachment’s organiza- tion; General Ishii, who presid- ed over its inhuman | existence; * Prince Takeda, who inspected the work from time to time; all these and many more are once again powerful and prom- inent in General MacArthur’s Japan. The actual enemies of yesterday, they are now the po- tential allies of tomorrow in est- ablishing America’s version of the “Co-Prosperity Sphere” in Asia. Little wonder that Mac- Arthur refused to bring them to trial before an international court for wac crimes against humanity. In Korea too, civi- lians are a military target for American planes and mass mur-. der is conducted under the mili- tary euphemism of “saturation bombing.” In the United States Profes- sor Theodore Rosebury, of Col- umbia University, has taken up the mantle of Ishii, propagan- dist for bacteriological warfare. In a book, Peace or Pestilence, devoted to the Ishii idea, he boasts: “We made the atom bomb and used it, and we have worked and are working to de- - velop B.W.” “One of the several important respects in which biological war- fare differs from the atom bomb,” he adds, “is that it could be used to destroy or in- capacitate -human beings with- . ut destroying property.” He should know. Until recently he worked for the U.S. War Re- search Service at Camp Detrick, Maryland, where biological war- fare research goes on. Reports say that America’s largest bac- teriological research station is at ‘Camp Detrick. Throughout the world, those whose stomachs turn and whose blood runs cold at the thought of what has been done against Civilian peoples by warmongers let loose, have taken their stand: Against the atom bomb, which destroys. cities, their workers and their wives and children, but not against bacteriological warfare, which kills men, cattle and crops, but leaves sacred prop- erty unharmed; against the pro- jected H-bomb, with horrors un- known. Five hundred million people throughout the world signed the Stockholm peace petition and their determination for peace, reflected in the recent ‘World Peace Congress at Warsaw, is the measure of popular revul- sion against the mass exterm- ination of another war. As the U.S. and the Western World pile up armaments, as the devilish plans and weapons of the warmongers are develop- ed, tested, tried in the hope that Japan’s grasp at world mastery can be emulated in the fifties—not by Japan but by the United States—the peoples of the world are organizing their will for peace. Not more weap- ons, but less, as the beginning of “general and complete dis- armament.” - ments.” 1”? “key “Expert” Neni agreed. Confound the ‘experts’ The California State Unamerican Activities Commit- tee is searching for a top “big shot’? Communist whom they want for questioning, who goes by the name of Jul- ius Fuchik and is the author of some “Communist docu- The committee got on the trail of Fucik, famous Czech Communist and Resistance hero shot by the Ges- tapo in 1943, when they were conducting an investigation among Stanford University students. In a letter presented as evidence during the investigation, a student referred to the world famous book by Fucik — Notes from, the’ Gallows (which won a peace prize at the recent Warsaw World Peace Congress) — as “the documents of Fuchik.” “Expert” anti-Communist witness Norman Mini inter- preted this phrase for the investigators as probably “a super-secret document” for top Communist party lead- ers, “something put out by a big shot.” “If we can find this Julius Fuchik that would be the exclaimed special investigator Richard E. Coombs. SAN FRANCISCO 4 ' ‘PACIFIC TRIBUNE — JANUARY 12, 1951 — Page 4 armies; .