Hidden rosters and the legacy of Japan's germ warfare
When he opened it, he found a trove of documents, diaries and photo albums kept by his late father, Toshiichi Miyashita, who spent nearly 15 years as a nurse soldier for the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II.
'My father didn't look like someone who had spent a long time in the military,' Takegami, 77, recalled. 'I was never slapped or beaten, and he remained calm even when he had drinks. He never once raised his voice.'
Intrigued, Takegami obtained Miyashita's military records from the local municipal government. The information he got was astounding: the father had belonged to Unit 1644 in the city of Nanjing in eastern China. Its official responsibility was epidemic control and water purification, but it is believed to have conducted biological weapons research and development in tandem with the infamous Unit 731.
A photo album Takegami discovered in his storehouse shows a portrait of his father, Toshiichi Miyashita. |
JOHAN BROOKS
Together with Katsuo Nishiyama, professor emeritus at Shiga University of Medical Science, Takegami has been investigating the details of these lesser-known sister units to gain a fuller understanding of the Imperial Japanese Army's biological warfare network.
In May, the National Archives of Japan disclosed to them rosters containing the names of all personnel who belonged to Unit 1644 , which was based in Nanjing, and Unit 8604, which was based in Guangzhou in southern China.
Compiled in 1945, the lists contain information such as the names of every soldier and military civilian in the units, the dates of their assignments and transfers, their addresses, the names of relatives designated as contact persons, the years of their conscription and their dates of birth. Called rusu meibo, the rosters were created by the Imperial Japanese Army to manage records for units stationed abroad and to facilitate communication between those units and the soldiers' families at home.
The lists show that some 2,500 people belonged to Unit 1644, quite a large operation comparable to Unit 731's 3,700 members, while Unit 8604 had about 1,000 members. The Imperial Japanese Army had two more similar units — Unit 1855 in Beijing and Unit 9420 in Singapore.
A photo album found in the home of Takegami bears a stamp that says "Memories of the Holy War." |
JOHAN BROOKS
On Aug. 6, Katsutoshi Takegami shows one of many photos left by his father at his home in Komagane, Nagano Prefecture. |
JOHAN BROOKS
Military records of Toshiichi Miyashita describe detailed activities of his stint in the Imperial Japanese Army, including in the biological warfare unit of Unit 1644. |
JOHAN BROOKS
After the war, doctors and medical researchers who engaged in human experiments under these units settled into prominent positions in academia and industry. Some are suspected of having obtained advanced medical degrees from top universities using data from the wartime human experiments.
Shiro Ishii, leader of Unit 731, was purged from public service by the Allied Occupation and kept a low profile.
Ryoichi Naito , a physician who worked under Ishii, went on to establish the Japan Blood Bank, the predecessor of Osaka-based pharmaceutical firm Green Cross Corp. The firm was implicated in a HIV-tainted blood scandal in the 1980s.
Tachio Ishikawa, another member who brought back 8,000 slides of pathological samples from Pingfang, became a professor at Kanazawa University.
None of them were tried for war crimes, thanks to immunity granted by the United States in exchange for their research data.
The disclosure of rosters symbolizes how Japan has lagged behind in its efforts to confront the medical community's war responsibility, which has long remained a taboo, Nishiyama said.
Takegami gazes out a glass door at his home in Nagano Prefecture. |
JOHAN BROOKS
'Medical education in this country has barely addressed Unit 731,' he said. 'Today, the overwhelming majority of medical students know nothing about it. Without that knowledge, future doctors could end up committing similar acts, or feel they have no choice but to go along. No one in medicine should ever think that way.'
Takegami, for his part, is driven more by his interest in his father's life story. The father had no medical background when he joined the military, but he went on to lead a 20- or 30-member team.
How Miyashita managed to climb the ranks during the war remains unknown. None of the historical materials Takegami has unearthed and the contacts he has tracked down have uncovered any direct involvement by his father in germ warfare. Not yet at least.
'There's a chance he may have been involved,' he said. 'If he had been, it would prove that, in war, anybody can be forced into committing such acts (of brutality).'
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Katsutoshi Takegami, a retired cafe owner in the city of Komagane, Nagano Prefecture, was cleaning the storehouse of his home seven years ago when he stumbled across a big wooden box. When he opened it, he found a trove of documents, diaries and photo albums kept by his late father, Toshiichi Miyashita, who spent nearly 15 years as a nurse soldier for the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II. 'My father didn't look like someone who had spent a long time in the military,' Takegami, 77, recalled. 'I was never slapped or beaten, and he remained calm even when he had drinks. He never once raised his voice.' Intrigued, Takegami obtained Miyashita's military records from the local municipal government. The information he got was astounding: the father had belonged to Unit 1644 in the city of Nanjing in eastern China. Its official responsibility was epidemic control and water purification, but it is believed to have conducted biological weapons research and development in tandem with the infamous Unit 731. A photo album Takegami discovered in his storehouse shows a portrait of his father, Toshiichi Miyashita. | JOHAN BROOKS Together with Katsuo Nishiyama, professor emeritus at Shiga University of Medical Science, Takegami has been investigating the details of these lesser-known sister units to gain a fuller understanding of the Imperial Japanese Army's biological warfare network. In May, the National Archives of Japan disclosed to them rosters containing the names of all personnel who belonged to Unit 1644 , which was based in Nanjing, and Unit 8604, which was based in Guangzhou in southern China. Compiled in 1945, the lists contain information such as the names of every soldier and military civilian in the units, the dates of their assignments and transfers, their addresses, the names of relatives designated as contact persons, the years of their conscription and their dates of birth. Called rusu meibo, the rosters were created by the Imperial Japanese Army to manage records for units stationed abroad and to facilitate communication between those units and the soldiers' families at home. The lists show that some 2,500 people belonged to Unit 1644, quite a large operation comparable to Unit 731's 3,700 members, while Unit 8604 had about 1,000 members. The Imperial Japanese Army had two more similar units — Unit 1855 in Beijing and Unit 9420 in Singapore. A photo album found in the home of Takegami bears a stamp that says "Memories of the Holy War." | JOHAN BROOKS On Aug. 6, Katsutoshi Takegami shows one of many photos left by his father at his home in Komagane, Nagano Prefecture. | JOHAN BROOKS Military records of Toshiichi Miyashita describe detailed activities of his stint in the Imperial Japanese Army, including in the biological warfare unit of Unit 1644. | JOHAN BROOKS After the war, doctors and medical researchers who engaged in human experiments under these units settled into prominent positions in academia and industry. Some are suspected of having obtained advanced medical degrees from top universities using data from the wartime human experiments. Shiro Ishii, leader of Unit 731, was purged from public service by the Allied Occupation and kept a low profile. Ryoichi Naito , a physician who worked under Ishii, went on to establish the Japan Blood Bank, the predecessor of Osaka-based pharmaceutical firm Green Cross Corp. The firm was implicated in a HIV-tainted blood scandal in the 1980s. Tachio Ishikawa, another member who brought back 8,000 slides of pathological samples from Pingfang, became a professor at Kanazawa University. None of them were tried for war crimes, thanks to immunity granted by the United States in exchange for their research data. The disclosure of rosters symbolizes how Japan has lagged behind in its efforts to confront the medical community's war responsibility, which has long remained a taboo, Nishiyama said. Takegami gazes out a glass door at his home in Nagano Prefecture. | JOHAN BROOKS 'Medical education in this country has barely addressed Unit 731,' he said. 'Today, the overwhelming majority of medical students know nothing about it. Without that knowledge, future doctors could end up committing similar acts, or feel they have no choice but to go along. No one in medicine should ever think that way.' Takegami, for his part, is driven more by his interest in his father's life story. The father had no medical background when he joined the military, but he went on to lead a 20- or 30-member team. How Miyashita managed to climb the ranks during the war remains unknown. None of the historical materials Takegami has unearthed and the contacts he has tracked down have uncovered any direct involvement by his father in germ warfare. Not yet at least. 'There's a chance he may have been involved,' he said. 'If he had been, it would prove that, in war, anybody can be forced into committing such acts (of brutality).'
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There, he saw rows of dead prisoners in jars filled with formaldehyde, including that of a woman whose belly was cut open, exposing a fetus inside. Some jars contained only parts of bodies, such as organs; others contained entire bodies, he said. 'I walked through the room crying, as the sting and smell of the formaldehyde hurt my eyes,' he said. 'It was horrendous... I saw the specimen of a baby, too. The supervisor wouldn't say anything. His stance was to show them and make us think what they are for ourselves.' Shimizu also recalled that, at one point, he might have become a test subject, himself. A supervisor brought steamed buns on a tray for him and two other young members to eat. After doing so, Shimizu ran a high fever the next day and was prescribed medicine, but his fever persisted. A nurse soldier who checked in on him every day saw that he was suffering and gave him a shot. He happened to have the same surname as Shimizu, so he probably sympathized with him, he thought. 'He told me never to tell anybody that I got the shot,' he said. After the war, he heard stories of other boy soldiers who had died while at Unit 731 who were said to have been dissected while they were alive. 'Researchers can get far better data if the subjects are dissected alive... I feel that we boy soldiers were seen as test materials, too.' Then on Aug. 9, 1945, as soon as the Soviet Union invaded the region of Manchuria controlled by Japan, the Imperial Japanese Army ordered the swift destruction of evidence and repatriation of unit members and their families. Within days, the remaining prisoners were killed, the documents, germs and equipment were incinerated, and the facilities were blown up. By Aug. 14, the entire Japanese community of 1,700 people comprising unit members and their families had left Pingfang. The ruins of the power supply squad building of the Unit 731 germ warfare unit located in Harbin in northeast China, photographed in 2005 | REUTERS Shimizu remembers seeing smoke rising from an incinerator in the Unit 731 building on Aug. 11 and thinking that "the maruta" were being cremated. On the morning of Aug. 12, he was ordered to collect the bones of the prisoners and put them into bags. He remembers counting about 30 bodies himself, though other accounts say the unit killed more than 400 remaining prisoners at this stage. The Imperial Japanese Army imposed a strict secrecy oath on members of Unit 731 and banned them from contacting one another after leaving. They were all handed cyanide to take if they were captured by enemy forces. Shimizu said he dumped the cyanide given to him into the ocean when he took a ship back from Busan to the city of Hagi in Yamaguchi Prefecture. Upon his return to his Nagano village, Shimizu rebuilt his life and went on to run a construction company and marry a local woman. He kept his past in Unit 731 a secret — even from his wife — until 2015, when he visited a peace museum in the city of Iida and saw a picture of the unit's headquarters. A group of peace educators overheard him speak about the building's details and encouraged him to speak up about his past. Breaking seven decades of silence, he started talking publicly about his experiences. He still has nightmares about his past and recalls in vivid detail how prisoners facing impending doom wrote their wills on the walls of prison cells using their own blood. 'I imagine how they must have felt, living in constant fear of being killed, wondering if it would be today or tomorrow.' Work to uncover sister units continues Katsutoshi Takegami, a retired cafe owner in the city of Komagane, Nagano Prefecture, was cleaning the storehouse of his home seven years ago when he stumbled across a big wooden box. When he opened it, he found a trove of documents, diaries and photo albums kept by his late father, Toshiichi Miyashita, who spent nearly 15 years as a nurse soldier for the Imperial Japanese Army before and during World War II. 'My father didn't look like someone who had spent a long time in the military,' Takegami, 77, recalled. 'I was never slapped or beaten, and he remained calm even when he had drinks. He never once raised his voice.' Intrigued, Takegami obtained Miyashita's military records from the local municipal government. The information he got was astounding: the father had belonged to Unit 1644 in the city of Nanjing in eastern China. Its official responsibility was epidemic control and water purification, but it is believed to have conducted biological weapons research and development in tandem with the infamous Unit 731. Katsutoshi Takegami, 77, in his storehouse attic where he discovered his father's Unit 1644 documents | JOHAN BROOKS Military records of Toshiichi Miyashita describe detailed activities of his stint in the Imperial Japanese Army, including in the biological warfare unit of Unit 1644. | JOHAN BROOKS Together with Katsuo Nishiyama, professor emeritus at Shiga University of Medical Science, Takegami has been investigating the details of these lesser-known sister units to gain a fuller understanding of the Imperial Japanese Army's biological warfare network. In May, the National Archives of Japan disclosed to them rosters containing the names of all personnel who belonged to Unit 1644 , which was based in Nanjing, and Unit 8604, which was based in Guangzhou in southern China. Compiled in 1945, the lists contain information such as the names of every soldier and military civilian in the units, the dates of their assignments and transfers, their addresses, the names of relatives designated as contact persons, the years of their conscription and their dates of birth. Called rusu meibo, the rosters were created by the Imperial Japanese Army to manage records for units stationed abroad and to facilitate communication between those units and the soldiers' families at home. A photo book Katsutoshi Takegami discovered in his storehouse shows a portrait of his father Toshiichi Miyashita. | JOHAN BROOKS The lists show that some 2,500 people belonged to Unit 1644, quite a large operation comparable to Unit 731's 3,700 members, while Unit 8604 had about 1,000 members. The Imperial Japanese Army had two more similar units — Unit 1855 in Beijing and Unit 9420 in Singapore. After the war, doctors and medical researchers who engaged in human experiments under these units settled into prominent positions in academia and industry. Some are suspected of having obtained advanced medical degrees from top universities using data from the wartime human experiments. Shiro Ishii, leader of Unit 731, was purged from public service by the Allied Occupation and kept a low profile. Ryoichi Naito , a physician who worked under Ishii, went on to establish the Japan Blood Bank, the predecessor of Osaka-based pharmaceutical firm Green Cross Corp. The firm was implicated in a HIV-tainted blood scandal in the 1980s. Tachio Ishikawa, another member who brought back 8,000 slides of pathological samples from Pingfang, became a professor at Kanazawa University. None of them were tried for war crimes, thanks to immunity granted by the United States in exchange for their research data. The disclosure of rosters symbolizes how Japan has lagged behind in its efforts to confront the medical community's war responsibility, which has long remained a taboo, Nishiyama said. Katsutoshi Takegami, 77, shows one of many photos left by his father at his home in Komagane, Nagano Prefecture, on Aug. 6. | JOHAN BROOKS A photo book found in the home of Katsutoshi Takegami bears a stamp that says "Memories of the Holy War." | JOHAN BROOKS 'Medical education in this country has barely addressed Unit 731,' he said. 'Today, the overwhelming majority of medical students know nothing about it. Without that knowledge, future doctors could end up committing similar acts, or feel they have no choice but to go along. No one in medicine should ever think that way.' Takegami, for his part, is driven more by his interest in his father's life story. The father had no medical background when he joined the military, but he went on to lead a 20— or 30-member team. How Miyashita managed to climb the ranks during the war remains unknown. None of the historical materials Takegami has unearthed and the contacts he has tracked down have uncovered any direct involvement by his father in germ warfare. Not yet, at least. 'There's a chance he may have been involved,' he said. 'If he had been, it would prove that, in war, anybody can be forced into committing such acts (of brutality).'
