David Peace - Occupied City

DISTRIBUTION

Report on Scientific Intelligence Survey

Agency

Vol. V

C/S, GHQ, AFPAC

1

Chief Surgeon, GHQ, AFPAC

2

Chief Chemical Officer, GHQ, AFPAC

2

Nav. Tech. Jap.

2

A C of S, G-2

Att: War Department Intelligence Target Section. 3

War Department, G-2

Att: Scientific Branch 39

Air Technical Intl. Group, FEAF 2

Lt. Col. M. Thompson 1

Stencils have been sent to G-2, War Department, where additional copies may be made available upon request.

— Report ends —

*

Marked PERSONAL

Dai-Ichi Hotel, Tokyo, Japan

November 18, 1945

My dearest Peggy ,

I hope, with all my heart, that you and the children are all well. As you know, I had hoped (& prayed) to be home with you all by now or, at the very latest, for Thanksgiving .

Unfortunately, things have taken a turn for the worse here. I know now that they have lied to me (these Japs) & my work here is far from done. I realize that they flattered me in order to distract me, faking respect for my reputation & my work at the College of Physicians & Surgeons. I realize, too, that I have been blinded by their titles & ranks, their own reputations & work .

There is something, however, I should have told you before but I suppose I was ashamed even then because I already knew (in my heart of hearts) that I had made a mistake. I suppose, also, that I was worried you would think less of me as a husband & as a father (& as a man) had you known (& I worry you may yet think so) .

Back in October, before I had even completed my report, I received a strange visit at my room here at the Dai-Ichi Hotel. I was lying on my bed, tired as usual, but unable to sleep when I heard a curious scratching outside my window. Imagine my surprise when I opened the curtains & saw a Jap, clinging for dear life to the water pipe, & staring back through the window at me. I ran back to my bed & grabbed my revolver from under my pillow . I then opened the window & grabbed the Jap by the hairs on his neck & hauled him into the room. He was wearing a beret, a sweatshirt & trousers & he was cowering & shaking before me. But he then pulled a document from the belt of his trousers & held it out to me. I took it from him with my left hand but all the time I kept my finger on the trigger of my revolver. I asked him who he was & what this document was. He told me he was a former BW engineer & that this document was the blueprint of a bomb known as the Uji bomb. He told me that this bomb was loaded with plague germs, that over one hundred were produced but that they did not work very well. He also told me experiments were carried out using Chinese prisoners .

I asked him for more details & he told me that the prisoners were chained to stakes at varying distances from the bomb, that the bomb was then detonated & records were taken as to the differing impact of the bomb & its germs on the prisoners at their various distances. He told me many prisoners died. He then told me that the prisoners were both Chinese AND American .

Of course, I was shocked & asked him where these experiments took place. He told me the experiments were conducted in a place called Pingfan, a suburb of Harbin, & and also at Mukden. He told me they also inoculated Chinese & American prisoners of war with bubonic plague .

As you know, my dearest Peggy, first and foremost, above all else, I am a medical doctor. I took the Hippocratic Oath & I believe in the words of that oath. I believe in the sanctity of human life .

So I knew then that I had made a mistake, a huge & terrible mistake, a mistake that would haunt me from then on if I did not take immediate steps to correct it. I knew I had to rectify my mistake .

I went straight to the General’s office. I told the General (& Willoughby & Compton) that Naitō had lied to me, lied to us all. I told them that we had no choice now but to scotch their immunity deal, that we had no choice now but to prosecute them all.

Well, the General raised his eyebrows & lit his pipe & then he said (& I quote), ‘Well, first we need more evidence. We can’t simply act on this. So keep going, keep going…’

Willoughby & Compton agreed with him (as usual) & Willoughby even added that I should ‘keep quiet.’

I admit I was surprised by their reaction. Most of all, I was surprised they were not surprised by this new information .

Of course, I went straight back to Naitō & I gave him a piece of my mind. As usual, he was most apologetic but it cut no ice with me. I demanded he give me all the information he had on this place called Pingfan & that if he did not, I would have him arrested as a war criminal on General MacArthur’s orders (this was a lie but two can play at that game, I thought) .

Anyway, lie or not, it had the desired effect on Naitō. He told me he didn’t really know much about the place, just what he’d heard from conversations he’d had with scientists who had worked there. But he thought that Unit 731 (the name they use) chose Pingfan because it was ‘the perfect place’; the temperature was ideal, with an average wind speed of ten to twelve miles per hour, the optimal conditions for disseminating bacteria. The perfect place, he kept saying. He also said (& I quote again), ‘But, I promise you, no human beings were involved in the experiments there.’ Liar, I thought to myself & I knew then that Pingfan was a place I must see with my own eyes .

Well, the plane (a B29) was ready & waiting for me at Tokyo airport to fly me to China and Pingfan. I was aboard, the propellers turning, when the engine suddenly stopped & the pilot came back down the plane. He said he had just received orders from General MacArthur himself & that I was recalled & was not to go to Pingfan. I could not believe it & so I headed straight back to GHQ .

The General was waiting for me with Willoughby & Compton. He said it was simply too risky for me to go to Pingfan because relations with the Soviets were deteriorating daily & the General could not risk a B29 falling into their hands .

Willoughby also now claimed that all our intelligence in mainland China indicated that Pingfan had been razed on the day of surrender & that it was nothing but a ruin now, that there was nothing to see. Nothing to see indeed, I thought to myself. That is the story of my time here .

So to my regret & to my shame (but on their orders), nowhere in my report, neither with regard to the Uji bomb nor the Ha bomb, did I make reference to any human experiments, nor is there reference to the blueprint I had received from the BW engineer & his allegation that prisoners of war had been killed in experiments .

Things then took a further bad turn within hours of me filing the report. I was back at the hotel, already packing & dreaming of seeing you all, when there was a knock on my door. It was a reporter from the wire services. He was holding a copy of my report & said it looked ‘very interesting’ & that he wanted to know more. Of course, I asked him how on earth he got hold of it & he said that there was a heap of them on a desk at GHQ, that they were only marked RESTRICTED & that the press were allowed to read anything marked RESTRICTED. I immediately commandeered a jeep from the desk clerk & drove back to Dai-Ichi HQ. I ran up the stairs to the General’s outer office. It was dark and unlocked & there, on the desk, was a pile of my reports all marked RESTRICTED. I counted them up. There were twenty-eight, twenty-nine including the one in my hand. However, if the General’s secretary had done as I had asked & made thirty copies, then one copy was still missing .