https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/w...s-in-spore
Footage of activities in Outram Park by a branch of Japanese army's covert operations unit discovered
Footage of secret World War II operations of a biological warfare branch in Singapore has been discovered recently.
The black-and-white film recording of OKA 9420 shows large, bubbling vials of liquids on high benches as well as Japanese personnel in white laboratory coats and what appears to be locals at work at the College of Medicine Building in Outram.
The Imperial Japanese Army war outfit was a branch of Unit 731 - a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development operation headquartered in Harbin, China.
The video was filmed by a Japanese leader of Unit 731 who was sent to Singapore, from 1942 until 1943, to examine the work of OKA 9420. He was also tracking its work in Malaya, Indonesia and Burma.
The reel, kept in his family until recently, will be released for the first time in August by Japanese journalist and Unit 731 book author Fuyuko Nishisato, who is working on the first exhibition on OKA 9420 with Singaporean history buff Lim Shao Bin. The exhibition will be held at the Unit 731 museum in Harbin.
Singapore's National Library Board (NLB) and National Archives confirmed they had a preview of the video last year.
Yale-NUS College historian Clay Eaton said the reel was "an incredible find". It offers "glimpses into the lived experiences of the Singaporeans who endured the Occupation".
ST showed screen grabs of the video to Dr Eaton, who studies the Japanese wartime empire and is writing a book on the administration of Singapore during the Occupation. He said the screen grabs were "fascinating".
While doing research for the exhibition, Mr Lim, who is fluent in Japanese, also uncovered little-known documents on OKA 9420.
Among them: a 200-page medical publication detailing the diseases OKA 9420 had studied; a wartime staff register of the branch's Japanese workers; and secret military reports that show Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, who was in office from 1941 to 1944, had instructed the Japanese commander-in-chief of the China Expeditionary Force, Shunroku Hata, to organise and establish OKA 9420.
The wartime register shows OKA 9420 started with 146 Japanese staff in May 1942.
By Jan 1, 1945, its operations in Singapore and the region had grown to 862 Japanese workers. Among them were doctors, virus specialists and nurses. The register was used to disburse salaries, and keep details such as staff names, their next of kin and prefectures of origin.
National University of Singapore military history professor Brian Farrell said: "These documents suggest the Japanese army institution's focus on biological warfare is perhaps more widespread than we have been led to believe through Japanese accounts.
"The staff register indicates the operation of Unit 731 must have been known by the Imperial Japanese Army - that it was part of more widespread use as part of its war strategy."
On the secret military reports, he said: "If we can corroborate this with other evidence that there is a direct and explicit link to Tojo, the highest level of national authority, that is something new and significant. It tells us something about this effort, not just in Singapore, to practise biological warfare."
Hideki Tojo was tried and executed for war crimes after the war.
The medical publication called The Southern Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department Research Report, Volume C, dated December 1942 to August 1943, appears to be the first written evidence from OKA 9420 itself, on the diseases it was studying.
Its work, up till this point, had largely been known through the accounts of war survivors such as Singapore pioneer leader Othman Wok, who, with his peer Eddie Barker, had small roles in the branch in wartime Singapore. Mr Othman was made to trap rats and check them for fleas to spread the bubonic plague, while Mr Barker worked in the anti-malarial unit.
The report details how the plague, malaria-carrying mosquitoes, cholera, typhus and smallpox could be weaponised. It features diagrams on the life cycles of disease-carrying pests such as mosquitoes and rats, and the conditions suitable for their proliferation.
It also references medical reports from Saigon, Rangoon and Malaya that discuss the impact of diseases, cures for them and the fatality rates of victims of infection.
It is known that the work of OKA 9420, which started operations in Singapore on May 5, 1942, also involved the development of vaccines and medication for Japanese personnel involved in disease-breeding activities and Japanese soldiers on the battlefield.
The medical publication by the Outram Park outfit, written in Japanese, can be retrieved online from the "Japan Center for Asian Historical Records" under the National Archives of Japan.
When asked, NLB said it does not have any official records on OKA 9420 in its collection.
Mr Lim, 61, has amassed thousands of rare materials on these topics in the past 30 years. His collection includes maps, photos and old books from antiquarian shops which he scoured while studying and working in Japan.
One of his motivations was to find closure for his grandfather's death in the war. He said NLB's quarterly journal BiblioAsia makes these rare items "accessible for research and, in the process, educate younger generations of Singaporeans on our war history".
He has given more than 800 items to the NLB. He has also lectured at the Library and the National Museum of Singapore's Historia SG public lecture programme on OKA 9420 in the past two years. He retired last year as a regional privacy officer at Sony.
The Guardian and The Japan Times reported last year that Japan disclosed the names of thousands of members of Unit 731 after the country's national archives passed on the names of 3,607 people in response to a request from Professor Katsuo Nishiyama of Shiga University of Medical Science.
He noted it was the first time an official document with the real names of almost all the unit's members had been unveiled.
Japan acknowledged the unit's existence in the late 1990s but much of its activities was built from the testimony of former members, photographs and documentary evidence, said The Guardian.
NUS' Prof Farrell said that although the latest documents might not offer blindingly new revelations about OKA 9420's overarching work in Singapore, they serve as reminders on the dangers of being occupied and shed more light on the Japanese Imperial Army's work in the region.
Yale-NUS historian Dr Eaton said such fresh finds "provide an in-depth and nuanced picture of what was happening here".
He added: "Many people had different experiences of the war that were intensely personal. Because of these different perspectives, it can be difficult to represent a clear picture of what happened, but each new piece of evidence gives us a better understanding of the period."
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No forgive and no forget lah!
Traitor lah! 