commit hari-kari.
THE MANCHURIAN SLAUGHTER
On August 8, 1945, the Soviet Union declared war on Japan. Having extracted their terrible revenge on Germany, they were now fired by a desire to punish Japan, the second instigator of World War II. Aided by the Mongolian Peoples Republic Army, they attacked the Japanese Kwantung Army in northern Manchuria. The fighting was ferocious and vengeful, the Nippon soldiers attacking in hordes, arms linked, into a withering fire of machine gun bullets. Many, armed with explosives, threw themselves under the tanks of the advancing Red Army at the same time shouting their Emperors name. The few soldiers who were captured showed no hesitation in committing hara-kiri by exploding hidden grenades and at the same time killing many of their captors. The Soviet and Mongolian soldiers unfortunate enough to be captured by the Japanese, faced a swift and terrible death. Their bodies were mutilated, eyes gouged out and genitals removed before decapitation. The Red Army suffered 8,219 killed and over 22,000 wounded. The Kwantung Army lost 7,483 killed and around 70,000 wounded. When the northern Kwantung Army laid down its arms and surrendered, Stalin took his revenge. The 640,000 prisoners, including 148 generals, were transported to Siberia and there put to work on forced labour projects. Some 62,000 of these prisoners died while in Soviet captivity. During the war (1937-1945) Japanese military losses were 1,140,429 killed in action in all theatres.
When Russia invaded Manchuria in 1945, the Japanese Government ordered that Pingfan (the Japanese experimental Biological and Germ Warfare Centre in occupied Manchuria) be destroyed. This complex was established by General Shiro Ichii and an Imperial prince and cousin of Emperor Hirohito. The documentation authorizing the building of this establishment, which occupied an area of six square kilometres, carried the Imperial Seal of the Emperor. Prisoners in the holding cells were first killed and all Chinese and Manchurian slave labourers who were forced to work in the complex were then machined-gunned to death. About 600 were killed this way, the bodies of the victims cremated in three large ovens the same way as those used in the Nazi death camps, and their ashes then dumped into the nearby Sungari River. The whole Pingfan complex was then blown up before the Russians arrived. Pingfan had 4,500 flea breeding machines which produced 100 million infected fleas every few days. These fleas, infected with plague, typhoid, cholera and anthrax organisms, were to be dropped on the invasion troops in a last ditch effort to win the war. Most of these plague-infected fleas was purposely released before the complex was destroyed. North-eastern China immediately became a disaster area and at least 30,000 people died over the next three years from plague and other diseases.
About 350 miles from Pingfan (the Germ Warfare Complex in Manchuria) was the prisoner of war camp at Mukden where 1,485 American, British and Australian P.O.W.s were sent in November, 1942. The American prisoners arrived in terrible shape via the hell-ship Totori Maru and suffering from all sorts of diseases contacted during their imprisonment at Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan. In August, 1942, around 1,500 men from Cabanatuan boarded the Totori Maru and sailed for Pusan in Korea. From Pusan they boarded a train destined for Mukden, Manchuria. There were two camps at Mukden, one at Hoten and the other at Hsien, the later holding the higher ranking Allied prisoners who were to be used as hostages in the event of an Allied invasion of Japan. The prisoners at Hoten were put to work producing parts for Japanese aircraft and tanks at the MKK factory. The deaths incurred here were due to neglect, disease, hunger, Japanese brutality and accidental bombing by US aircraft on December 7, 1944 when 19 P.O.W.s were killed and 54 wounded. By November, 1943, a total of 84 British, 16 Australians and a large number of US servicemen had perished.
It is estimated that around 60,000 prisoners, including Chinese an