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Kyoto News, Friday July 21, 2006, Reprinted from Yahoo! Asia News (Kyodo) _ The defunct Imperial Japanese Army's germ warfare unit planned to stage germ attacks against U.S. troops in Japan just after Japan's surrender in World War II in August 1945, researchers said Friday, citing a memorandum left by the unit's commander, Lt. Gen. Shiro Ishii. But the germ warfare team, known as Unit 731, gave up the plan after being told by then top commanders of the Imperial Japanese Army, "Don't die in vain," the researchers said. It is unclear how Ishii planned to carry out the attacks because statements of the memorandum are fragmentary. Unit 731 was already known to have made preparations to stage "tokko" suicide germ attacks against U.S. forces just before Japan's surrender. The memorandum shows that the unit planned germ attacks even after the end of the war. Unit 731 commander Ishii, who was a medical officer, hand-wrote the memorandum fragmentarily, a copy of which was obtained by U.S.-based Japanese journalist Fukiko Aoki from a former Japanese civilian army employee who had served for Ishii. It was analyzed by a well-known Japanese authority on biochemical weapons -- Keiichi Tsuneishi, a professor at Kanagawa University in Yokohama. The memorandum in a large notebook depicts developments involving the germ unit during 11 days from Aug. 16, 1945, the day after Japan's surrender. It says, "Will transport to the home country 'maruta,' PX as much as possible." "Maruta" was the unit's code word for prisoners of war on whom germ weapons were tested, while PX means pest bacillus-infected fleas, the researchers said. Other fragments of the memorandum include "American troops arrive (at Sagami Bay near Tokyo) on 25th (of August)," "Will scatter (the weapons) across the country," and "personnel and equipment can be transported with sailboats." The expressions mean Ishii apparently planned germ attacks against U.S. troops and studied transporting germ warfare personnel and their equipment to Japan, they said. But entries on Aug. 26, two days before the arrival of an advance team of the U.S. forces, carry instructions from top army generals that say "Don't die in vain," and "Wait for next opportunity calmly." The instructions were issued by Gen. Yoshijiro Umezu and Gen. Torashiro Kawabe, then chief of staff and deputy chief of the Imperial Japanese Army, respectively. On transportation of "maruta" POWs, Tsuneishi of Kanagawa University said it is unlikely that Unit 731 planned to send POWs to Japan. He said the unit might have tried to send specimens produced through human experiments. The Imperial Japanese Army established Unit 731 in 1936 as an anti-epidemic and water supply division of the Kwantung Army. But its real mission was to develop biological weapons using plague, anthrax and other bacteria. The Kwantung Army was part of the Japanese Imperial Army stationed in northeastern China, which was under Japanese control. Headquartered in the suburbs of Harbin in Heilongjiang Province, the unit conducted germ warfare in various places in China and mainly used Chinese as subjects in human experiments. Historians believe that some 3,000 people died in the human experiments conducted by the unit before and during the war. The Japanese government estimates the Kwantung Army abandoned a total of 700,000 biochemical shells in extensive areas in northeastern China. Under an agreement with China, Japan has retrieved 37,000 such shells since it began the disposal project in September 2000.