Book Report
Unit
731 Testimony
Hal Gold, Yenbooks, Tokyo, 256pgs (paper), 1996.
Review by: Dr Al Parmet
I picked this one off the shelf thinking initially that it was a sequel to the 1989 book Unit 731 by Peter Williams and David Wallace. To my surprise, the earlier book is not even mentioned or its history referred to in any way. Testimony is instead a complimentary history of the World War II Japanese biological warfare program. Subtitled, "Japan’s Wartime Human Experimentation Program" this book was originally written in Japanese and is translated to English. The limits of the translator are apparent and the author, despite his European name, seems to be more at home in Japanese than English.
In spite of this, the book sets out to provide two things. In the first half, it is a concise history to the Imperial Japanese Army’s biological warfare program. In this part the development of chemical and biological weapons by Japan after the First World War, parallel to all the other great powers. What differed in Japan was that it was the product of one man’s will, Col. (Dr) Ishii. What also differed was the willingness to actually use the weapons and experiment on human beings. Only Japan would actually deploy and use biological weapons in the Second World War. When the earlier book was written, the history of Unit 731 was completely unknown and the dramatic recovery of its documents by a student in a flea market was news. Ten years later, more information is available, but the actual history of Unit 731 operations is still better covered by Williams and Wallace. It is the second half of Gold’s book that makes it worth reading.
In 1994 and 1995 an exhibit of Unit 731 began touring Japan. The real history of their country’s activities in World War II came as a shock to many. The stories of slave laborers and prisoners of war being used as human guinea pigs for deadly experiments, autopsies on unanesthetized, living human beings and actual biological warfare episodes against the Chinese and Russians demonstrated to the Japanese people that their own government was indeed guilty of criminal acts comparable to the Nazis. Just as interesting is the fact that the occupying allies became aware of these experiments. Not a single Japanese officer, civilian scientist or soldier who belonged to Unit 731 was tried as a war criminal despite overwhelming proof of guilt. Instead they were drafted into the Cold War and their knowledge applied to that struggle. Many of the alumni of Unit 731 have gone on to medical careers, such as the founders of the international medical supply company, Green Cross. Even Col. Ishii lived out his days in peace.
In this last part, some of the participants themselves came to the traveling exhibit. Former soldiers and scientists were interviewed. Their verbatim stories make the second half of Gold’s book. There is no editorializing, just the statements of the participants. Some express regret at the torture and deaths of captive Chinese civilians and allied soldiers. But far too many simply report no regrets, they were serving the emperor, it was wartime, they were merely "following orders". In this simple and unvarnished delivery, the fundamental truth is that Japan was never called to admit its role in causing the war and propagating crimes against humanity. The Japanese government is still not ready to fully present its national history as other than a victim of the war, even more than fifty years later. That the Unit 731 show had to wait that long and receive so much attention means that at least the "forty years in the desert" are coming to an end and Japan too may be soon able to view its own dark side as Germany has done. In that sense, this book will give you considerable insight into the minds of the medical professionals who perpetrated such crimes and how their country is only now coming to terms with them.
 |
More Information about the book. |
 |