Historical documents presented to the Japanese Defense Agency yesterday
reveal that the Japanese Army destroyed evidence of biological weapons
development in China upon surrender in 1945, Kyodo News reported.
The Niiduma documents, named after Seiichi Niiduma, a deceased former army
officer in the Imperial Japanese Army, also show that at the end of World War
II, the United States occupation authority had exempted Japan from liability of
having conducted human experiments in China.
The documents included Niiduma's record of the Japanese Army ordering Unit
731 on Aug. 15, 1945 to have evidence of developing germ weaponry destroyed, as
well as his records of the U.S. authority questioning himself and other Japanese
officers, the report said.
According to his records, the U.S. authority told Niiduma and others "not to
mix scientific research with war crimes," which practically exempted Japan from
liability of conducting human experiments in China.
The bunch of documents, collected by Niiduma during the war, were given to a
research institute of the Defense Agency on Wednesday by his second daughter
Tomoe Obata.
The documents also included a letter from Tomosada Masuda, an army doctor of
Unit 731, to Niiduma in November 1945, which recorded that another army doctor,
Ryoichi Naito, had proposed concealing the fact that human experiments were
conducted in China. Enditem
