David Peace - Occupied City

There is no doubt in my mind that Naitō had taken the missing copy (though, of course, he denies it) & that my report was already being read out in the suburbs by the senior members of Unit 731. No doubt too, they were celebrating my incompetence .

I hope you will also understand, from all I have told you, why I cannot return home to you & the children until I have corrected my mistake. I beg your understanding, patience & forgiveness .

Think of me this Thanksgiving, as I will be thinking of you all that day, as I think of you and miss you all each and every day .

With all my love, your husband, Murray .

*

Stamped TOP SECRET

APO 500-Advanced Echelon

December 9, 1945

To:

Colonel Harlan Worthley, Office of the Chief Chemical Warfare Service, Special Project Division, Gravelly Point, Washington, D.C.

Dear Colonel Worthley,

It is with great regret, and heavy heart, that I write this letter to you. However, I am duty- and honor-bound to tell you that I sincerely regret writing the report dated November 1, 1945.

Almost immediately upon completion of the above-mentioned report, I was confronted with new information which contradicted statements included in my report. I realize now that my report includes statements that are not only contradictory but also false.

Many of these contradictions & falsehoods are the result of my (misplaced) trust in Lt. Col. Naitō. I thought Naitō was quick, helpful, efficient and very humble. I thought he worked a long day, every day, and then went home dutifully to his wife. I now know (though he does not know I know) that he does nothing of the sort. Every night, he leaves my office here at Supreme Allied HQ in the Dai-Ichi Building and makes immediately for a rendezvous with senior members of Unit 731 and Unit 100 who are hiding here in the suburbs of Tokyo. He goes to brief them on what I am finding out which — thanks to him — is precious little. I know now he has been controlling me and it is his job to make sure I don’t find out too much. He has been very good at his job (up to now).

It is true that thanks to Naitō I was able to interview Yoshijirō Umezu, the chief of the Army General Staff and commander-in-chief of the former Kwantung Army. I also interviewed Tadakazu Wakamatsu, the Vice-Minister of War; Lt. Gen. ToraShirō Kawabe, vice-chief of the Army General Staff; Hiroshi Kambayashi and Nobuaki Hori, the army and navy Surgeon Generals; Colonel Saburo Idezuki, chief, Division of Preventative Medicine, Tokyo Army Medical College; Colonel Takamoto Inoue, chief, Bacteriological Section, Tokyo Army Medical College; Colonel Tomosada Masuda, Ishii’s deputy; Major Junichi Kaneko, the BW bomb expert; Lt. Col. Seiichi Niizuma, a senior army technical expert.

I asked them about fuses, detonations and scattering devices. I asked them about their ‘bacillus bomb’. I showed them the Red Book — the book with the details of Special Bomb Mark 7 — which we had captured in the South Pacific in May 1944.

Of course, they must have known that this was all I knew, that this was all we had. They also knew all I really wanted to know was where Ishii was. But, repeatedly, they all told me they presumed the commander of Unit 731 was still in Manchuria, or even dead. But I now know they were lying (all of them).

However, based on these interviews and the information that Naitō gave me, and which at that time I believed (wrongly) to be true, it was my recommendation to SCAP that no one involved in the Jap BW program be prosecuted as a war criminal. I made this recommendation in the sincere (but false) belief that no prisoners were ever used as experimental ‘guinea pigs’, as Naitō had ‘vowed’ that this was never the case. This I know now was a complete and utter lie (among many, many others).

Now I have a new and secret informant — whose identity, at this stage, I cannot reveal. But I will say that my new informant was an engineer with Unit 731 in China and has supplied me with the documentation and information which details the extent of the offensive Jap BW program. Furthermore, this informant is willing to testify that prisoners were used as ‘guinea pigs’. It is my belief that this informant of mine has provided the documentation and testimony needed to prosecute members of Unit 731 and Unit 100 as war criminals.

As protocol dictates, I have furnished SCAP with this new intelligence but, for reasons that remain unclear, I have yet to receive any direction or instruction as to how to proceed. I fear, however, that time is of the essence and that we cannot afford to procrastinate any longer.

As you know, President Truman has appointed Joseph B. Keenan as our chief prosecutor at the IMTFE and Keenan is expected here in Tokyo any day now with his team of lawyers. I believe a meeting with the prosecution should be arranged as soon as possible, but await confirmation of your consent and further instructions in all these matters.

Sincerely, Lt. Col. Murray Thompson.

*

Marked PERSONAL

Dai-Ichi Hotel, Tokyo, Japan

January 27, 1946

My dearest Peggy ,

I hope you & the children are all well & that you were able to enjoy a merry Christmas & a happy New Year. I am only sorry, with all my heart, that I was not there to enjoy the holidays with you. However, I fear I would have been poor company as I have had a bad cough (though worry not, I am certain I am over the worst of it now) .

To be honest, these past few weeks have not been easy ones & I have now been forced to take matters into my own hands in regard to my work. I did so only after much thought & soul searching but in the sincere hope that I would be able to bring matters here to a head & a swift conclusion would follow. I am still hopeful that this will prove to be the case & that sooner-than-you-think I’ll be walking up the driveway to our house (never to leave again!) .

To my consternation, & in spite of many interviews with the General & letters to Washington, I have still received no response to my urgent requests to follow up on the allegations of human experiments &, in particular, to locate & question Lt. Gen. Ishii (the top man in charge of the offensive Jap BW program in China) .

But, as my father used to say, you have to beat the ground to startle the snakes & so I have been beating the ground very hard here in Tokyo. Very hard, indeed!

Earlier this month, I received a copy of George Merck’s personal report to Secretary of War Patterson on Allied BW activities during the war. Merck included in his report the following sentence: ‘There is no evidence that the enemy ever resorted to this (BW) means of warfare.’ But, in his conclusion, Merck stressed that continued efforts in BW research were vital to America’s security .

Having read this report, I realized I needed help. I called the one Jap journalist who has been helpful to me & I gave him everything I knew about Ishii & Unit 731. I told him he could run the story, but not to use my name. I then asked him for a favor in return. I asked him to call The Pacific Stars & Stripes newspaper & to give them everything I had given him. Of course, I asked him to leave out my name & to attribute all quotes to ‘Japanese Communist leaders’ .

Two days later the article ran, quoting Japanese Communist leaders accusing ‘members of the Japanese Medical Corps’ of inoculating American & Chinese prisoners of war with bubonic plague virus. It went on (& I quote): ‘Dr Shim Ishii, former lieutenant general in the Japanese Surgeons’ Corps and former head of the Ishii Institute in Harbin, directed “human guinea pig” tests both at Mukden and Harbin.’