Bacteriological Echo of the Second World War

Secret Japanese Bacteriological Weapon
Little Known Chapters of the Second World War

In 1949 war crimes of Japan, which developed bacteriological weapons and used them in the Second World War, were revised within the framework of the Khabarovsk War Crimes Trials. Having heard the case of Japanese military men accused of the crime, the judges identified and revealed the use of bacteriological weapons. At that time the trials were rather notorious. However, in 2009, it seemed that the 60^th anniversary of the trial passed without being noticed. Even those who used to scrutinize our recent history to unearth the tiniest tear of a child seem to forget that such trials ever took place.

    

Y. Efimenko. Turning the Pages of “Soviet Russia” September 3, 2011

A Glimpse into What We Know

Unlike the First World War summed up by the victors almost in secret in a forest near Paris, the end of the Second Ward War was historically resonant – revealing and extensive trials were held by international military tribunals condemning those who were fully to blame for unleashing the war and killing millions of people.         

The first, and the most renowned (at least for those who are older than forty) tribunal revising cases of Hitler’s inner circle was held in Nuremberg, Germany, from 20^th November 1945 till 1^st October 1946. Thus, it took a bit less than a year. The hall was crowded with journalists from every corner of the globe, who day by day reported the revelations to their readers. The second tribunal revising cases of the Japanese military government took place in Tokyo within the period from 3^rd May 1946 till 12^th November 1948 – it lasted for two years and came almost unnoticed. There were plenty of journalists, yet somehow they showed no interest in the trial, since everyone had already been busy restoring the war-ravaged planet.

However, the world steel keeps both trials in memory. First of all, that goes for Germany and Japan. However, the attitude toward the trials in these two countries is not the same. Germans, with all their past century-long advancements in science, philosophy, arts and crafts, the launched Nuremberg trials turned out to be a heavy blow, yet, at the same time, they learnt a lot from it. Japan has just slightly altered its flag, the sun on which no longer emits rays (shining all over Asia!), and shuns public attention. The Tokyo trial, the San-Francisco Peace Treaty, and the loss of the Kuril Islands ‒ all these events add up to the pain which is still too strong.

However, there was yet another trial, the Khabarovsk trial, which foreign historians try to ignore and we fail to remind about. The trial revising cases of Japanese military men accused of developing and using was held within the period from 25^th till 30^th December 1949.

The Soviet Government most strongly insisted on isolating it from the Tokyo trial to be held as an independent one, because more than once starting from 1939 when the Battle of Khalkhin-Gol took place, the bacteriological weapons were used against our country, as well as against China and Mongolia. Since by that time the Soviet Union (which played the major role in the Second World War and at the greatest cost) had become a power to reckon with, the two trials were separated. And even more important for our country is the fact that the entire high command of the Kwantung Army, a creation of the Russian-Japanese War of 1904‒1905, was brought to trial. For a long time, since the very beginning of 1930s, the Kwantung Army was set against our country. By the way, Yamada Otozō, the Commander-in-Chief, participated in the Russian Japanese War. Oh, the irony of history!

The Nuremberg tribunal condemned 12 of the condemned to death, and sent other 7 to prison, and some of them were to remain there till the end of their days. The Germany accepted the ruling without objections as it deserved it. Upon completion of the Tokyo trials 7 of the accused, including two former prime ministers, were put to death, 16 of the accused were sentence to life-long imprisonment, and other two were sent to prison for many years to come. The Japanese Government expressed their gratitude to the Allied Powers, and to the USA and UK in particular, for the humanity they had sown. It seems, that Japan had been expecting a much more severe verdict. Yet, on the second thought, it appears that they were truly grateful to the tribunal for sparing the war criminal, who held the highest post – Emperor Hirohito, who had signed all criminal orders which cost Japan and other countries (and, first of all, China) millions of lives of their people.

Within the framework of the Khabarovsk trial only 4 of the accused were condemned to 25-year service at corrective labour camps. The rest 8 war criminals were sent to prison for two to twenty years. If the Khabarovsk Tribunal which was completed on the last days of December lasted a bit longer (and, in fact, it was easy to drag out the proceedings), those condemned to the 25-year service at corrective labour camps would have been put to death, since death penalty was reinstated in the USSR in January 1950. Yet the victors pitied them. However, Japan failed to note such indisputable and self-evident humanity of Soviet Union, as it failed to notice that none of those condemned to 25-year service at corrective labour camps served there to the end of the term – they all returned home under amnesty. Instead, since then Japan has kept making claims against our country. It seems, that honorable Japanese politicians have all fallen preys to mental disorders.     

And Now Let’s Turn to What We Haven’t Been Told

Traditionally, as soon as one starts talking about the Khabarovsk Trial, it usually reminds one about the ominous “Unit 731” which was stationed near Haerbin. It was wise of the Chinese people to turn the place into a memorial complex, which every conscious person should visit on par with Oswencim in Poland or Hiroshima in Japan.

Yet the crux of the matter is that the names of sinister units, such as “731^st”, “100^th” (which was stationed near Changchun), which were a part of the Kwantung Army, and “A” and “Nami”, which had operated in Central and South China, were frequently heard in the Khabarovsk proceedings. “Unit Nami” was stationed near Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and coded “Unit No.8604”. “Unit A” aka “Tama” was stationed near Nanjing and coded “Unit No.1644”. All the four ad hoc formations dealing with bacteriological warfare were the Japanese “secret weapon”. It was a luring and promising opportunity and warranted success with the minimum expenses and efforts! All the units were under a special “auspices” of the Japanese top military echelon. And all the units did their best to achieve their goals!

No one has ever managed to put all the pieces together. We still don’t know how many people actually died both in the “Units” in the process of experiments, and as a result of field “maneuvers” of these “Units”. And chances of ever learning the truth are slim. We still take everything we know about the southern units from testimonies of the accused and witnesses at the Khabarovsk Trial, and sometimes we may find a hint in testimonies given at the Tokyo Trial. Yet whenever the issue was brought forth in Tokyo, the discussion was wrapped up immediately. Most of those who served in the units, as well as their documents and most valuable equipment were delivered to the US command. And last but not least, no historian has ever got access to them.

“Units” 731 and 100 would still remain in shadow, but the Khabarovsk Trial exposed most of their crimes. The Units were formed in 1935 to 1936 and developed on the basis of secret orders of Emperor Hirohito. They were directly in charge of the Headquarters and Military Ministry. Everyone knew them as the “Administration for Water Supply to and Prevention in Military Units of the Kwantung Army” and some “Hippo-Epizootic Administration of the Kwantung Army”. From the moment of the Nazi invasion of the USSR, and since the Japanese Army started preparing for invasion of the Soviet Far East, the so-called “Administrations” were transformed into military troops named “Unit 731” and “Unit 100”. Those who seek to learn about the initial disguise of the southern “units” should apply to the US Department of State for assistance. Who knows? You may be lucky to get some information. Of course, you could apply to the Japanese Government… Yet they are unlikely to respond.

It all stemmed from the most insistent efforts of Ishii Shiro, whose name at first was barely known to the general public. He was a son of a major landlord. He graduated from Tokyo Imperial University, where he studied medicine, and then became an instructor at Military Medical Academy. But, in fact, he was nothing but an accomplished monster. Since the beginning of 1930s he was seeking patrons among the upper echelon of the Japanese Government to promote his ideas of bacteriological warfare and its principals and mechanisms. And he eventually succeeded. He managed to convince the Government that his ideas were promising. Soon after the Japanese occupation of Manchuria he took charge of a bacteriological laboratory established on the occupied territory. To keep it secret, it was dubbed “Togo Unit”. Later, the unit headed by Ishii transformed into “Unit 731”, where an elder Ishii’s brother took charge of a dreadful local prison. Ishii’s brother also acted “at the call of his heart” as a volunteer. Thus, the Japanese military regimen gave rise to an ominous “family enterprise” that specialized in killing people.

Ishii Shiro was in charge of “Unit 731” twice – first, at the very beginning, when the unit was still developing, and from March 1945 and till the very end of the war. He managed to escape. Americans harboured him and all the military men from the four units and refused to extradite them. Those whom the Red Army managed to capture in August and September were the only ones brought to the trial.

The “Unit 731”

Right after the attack of the Soviet Army, shooting and explosions burst in the rear of the Kwantung Army, and entire communities were on fire. The Chief-in-Command issued instructions to immediately and completely annihilate the secret chain of “units” with their branches. Everything of importance was urgently sent to Japan via Korea. Almost the entire “Unit 731”, except for those who served in its branches, managed to escape. The evidence of its existence, which sooner or later was bound to be discovered by meticulous historians, was lost in a small Japanese settlement of Hagi on the Korea Strait, where the unit was dissolved. Ishii had already said goodbye to his lifework waving farewell from a station platform in Pyongyang. All names of those who served in the unit are well known to the Japanese. During the first post-war years they were carefully tested for “loyalty”.

The Japanese have acknowledged that “Unit 731” was the most powerful unit that had tremendous capabilities to produce and use bacteriological weapons. The bacteriological warfare factory had no rivals in the world with almost three thousands of scientists and engineers employed by it. Even the Chief-in-Command Yamada who visited the factory was “astounded by the scale of research and enormous capabilities of the unit for development of bacteriological weapons”. Those “capabilities” included millions and billions of Bacillus anthracis, Vibrio cholera and Yersinia pestis strains.

Its first research department “was developing more and more effective bacteriological warfare facilities”, which randomly killed military men and civilians. The local prison providing human subjects to the savage experiments, or “logs” as they used to be called by the Japanese was subordinate to this “killing” department. The department had its own crematorium.

The second department tested the endeavours of the first department at test sites. And, again, they used people to test their weapons. Those were the sites where new weapons and ways of bacterial infestation were invented. For instance, the department was the first to use ceramic bombs or spraying guns disguised as pens and walking sticks.

The third department was rather a cover which, indeed, dealt with water supply. It was situated in full view of everybody in Haerbin. However, it had shops where purpose-specific “Ishii’s system” bombs were manufactured.

The fourth department was a true “plague factory” equipped with boilers, steam sterilizers, propagators, thermostats and fridges where finished products, pathogenic bacteria, were stored.

The unit had eight departments in total. It should be noted, that one of the department was an “educational and training center”, where students were taught how to use bacteriological weapons – it was a source of manpower for bacteriological warfare.

Every department had divisions, and the “Unit” had multiple branches located close to the border with the USSR, which were subordinate to military units of the Kwantung Army. In addition, military troops included specifically trained bacteriological teams. In a nutshell, the “Unit” was the pinnacle of a well-structured and run “death machine”. And from the very start the Soviet Union was its major target. It was established in Haerbin since it was a vantage ground to operate against our country.

Ishii Shiro played the key role in all those activities, and it was no accident that he came back there in spring 1945 having been promoted to Lieutenant General. He was instructed to boost production of bacteriological weapons and to prepare to its extensive use.

General Matsumura Tomokazu who headed the operations and strategy department at the Headquarters of the Kwantung Army and the most informed person in the Headquarters, frankly said that in case of war with the USSR, “bacteriological weapons would be used in Voroshilov, Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk and Chita”. Vladivostok would be spared for the sole reason that it was used as a naval facility. However, it would have its share of pathogenic bacteria as well.

During their almost ten-year history the “Units” managed to achieve a lot – they sustained major operations with a devastating death toll in Southern and Central China in 1940, 1941 and 1942; and they came to the state borders of Mongolia and the USSR contaminating near-border waters. “Production” capabilities of “Unit 731” included more than five million of “plague” units per every human on the Earth. China and the USSR were followed by the UK and USA in the bacteriological warfare list of the “Unit”.

We still don’t know how many people were actually affected and died, how many livestock and wild animals perished and how much soil was contaminated as a result of joint “activity” of the Units. At least, we’ve got no access to such information. Retreating in battles with the Chinese, Japanese military men just contaminated the entire locality without giving it a second thought.

The death toll will become even higher if we add losses of the Japanese Army, which have hardly been accurately estimated even in Japan. In July 1944 Lieutenant Colonel Nishi Toshihide took charge of the educational and training center and found documents confirming use of bacteriological weapons in Khalkhin-Gol back in 1939, which were left in a safe box by his forerunner. Among those documents he found a list of a death squad including two officers and about 20 non-commissioned officers and soldiers. Traditionally, they signed the document with their blood. It’s still unknown what happened to those “plague” kamikazes. It would be great to see the list, in the first place. It could be kept in the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, since after their death they were honored post-mortem as national heroes, along with those members of the “Units” who occasionally contracted an infection and died in restricted-access hospitals.

First of all, it would be especially beneficial to learn about those who were killed at “death factories”, which were run by the “Units”. Those on trial stated that since 1940 “Unit 371” lost 3000 people who contracted infections. The actual number must be much greater. For instance, an extract from the “Summary Report of Investigation of Japanese War Crimes Committed in Nanjing” was published within the framework of the Tokyo proceedings. The prosecutor from Nanjing, who had conducted the investigation, stated that “it is impossible to establish the exact number of people killed by this unit”. And that was all he could say.

The idea of the situation in the local prison of “Unit 731” we have is the most clear one, since it was the one most discussed within the framework of the Khabarovsk Trial.

Japanese Hell

In mid-1950s one of the participants of destruction of the prison and all other facilities run by the “Unit”, who wished to remain anonymous, told the entire story. In 1958 the book by him was translated into Russian and published in our country, and I must say that it’s not for the squeamish. Modern authors of “gore” pale in comparison. By the way, the annihilators razed the hospital to the ground together with their severely ill fellows.

The ruins of “Unit 731” were ablaze, and at the same time the army was destroying “Unit 100” and all its branches in Manchuria.
The local prison of “Unit 731” could accommodate 400 to 600 inmates, and even more if one tried harder. Its inmates were from China, Manchuria and Russia, and the Japanese never bothered to even ask their names. They could do with assigned numbers – executioners were past caring for IDs of their victims. The prison had common 10-meter wards with ribbed concrete walls, which were poorly ventilated and lit, with a piss can in a corner. The inmates slept on mats, and those kept on the ground floor had to arrange their beds on the bare ground.

Prisoners were brought there from all over Manchuria after interrogations and tortures at gendarmeries. It their devious actions the jailers were being guided by a Notice of “Special Dispatches”, which provided a list of criteria, including “pro-Soviet or anti-Japanese moods”, “lack of remorse”, “no hope to rectify”, “past history of guerilla activities or other harmful actions”, or (a masterpiece of gendarme thought!) “undesirability of release, even if the offence is minor”. In a nutshell, the foremost, “committed”, political prisoners were sent to the “Units”. And I bet they were among the best people of their time!

A special camp, which had a capacity to accommodate 140 inmates, was arranged for Soviet people on the skirts of Haerbin in a small town of Heibo. The camp was affectionately called “Hogoin”, an “asylum”. From there people were sent in dark windowless cars to never be seen again. They set on their last journey through a secret tunnel arranged under the façade of the headquarters.

Let’s peek into another prison. Yet keep in mind, that we will see everything through the eyes of samurai monsters, who were dauntlessly ruthless, brutal and unable to empathize. 

In March 1940 a gendarme escort sergeant major of Kurakazu Satoru, who delivered yet another batch of prisoners from Haerbin under the cover of night, asked a local sergeant major to make a tour of the prison. He was eager to see everything with his own eyes. Of course, the local sergeant major reported his wish to Ishii Senior who headed the prison, and the latter joined the small tour. “We approached the Unit 731 headquarters, which was situated in a rectangular building with a prison arranged in the atrium hidden from view. The prison was divided into two block – the left-side and right-side ones. I visited the left-side block. We passed through a corridor with a guard’s room on the left and a staircase and one more room on the right, and then I saw the wards… The inmates were mostly from China. Yet I also saw Russians. I counted five Chinese women”.

Chief Kwantung regular staffer, Colonel Tamura Tadashi, visited the prison at the beginning of June 1945. In his tour he was accompanied by General Ishii. He said that “… in special wards with windows in their doors there were chained people who were used as subjects of experiments, in which they were contaminated with fatal illnesses, as Ishii explained me. Among them I spotted Chinese, Europeans, and a woman. Ishii told me that the woman and the Europeans were Russians… People slept on the floor and seemed to be severely ill and helpless”.

Unlike the colonel, the inquisitive sergeant major also described the laboratory. “When I entered the prison laboratory, I saw five subjects from China who were sitting on a long bench; two of them had no fingers – their hands were black, and two of them had bones sticking from their arms. There were some who still had fingers, yet there were no skin and flesh on them left… Those were the results of experiments to study cold injuries”.

That’s an account a gendarme could give without any risk for himself. That was some kind of “secondary production” to prepare the Japanese Army for the planned winter campaign in Siberia and Far East. Others were put into low pressure chambers to find out how the human body behaves at great altitudes – the pressure was reduced while the agonizing people were slowly dying. And all the experiments were filmed. The studies were ordered by air forces. The “Unit” also tested a chemical weapon, vesicant war gas.

However, comprehensive studies of effectiveness of use of Bacillus anthracis, Vibrio cholera, Yersinia pestis and other fatal infections were their specialty.
        Those who were brought to the prison never returned. General Kawashima Kiyoshi, the former head of the operations department, testified that “if an inmate somehow recovered from a fatal infection, he was used as a subject in other experiments until he died. Contaminated subjects were treated to test various treatment regimens. They were well fed. As soon as they recovered, they were used in another experiment and contaminated with other infections. In any case, no one ever survived their stay in this death factory”.

Allow me to emphasize, that Kawashima Kiyoshi was among the accused, yet still he chose to describe his “Unit” as a death factory! All rights reserved – he said that within the framework of a preliminary interrogation on 23^rd October 1949.

Before being burnt in the crematorium, bodies of the diseased were dissected and studied thoroughly. However, practices of “Unit 100” were different. Inmates exhausted beyond repair were simply shot in the back of their heads or killed by a potassium cyanide injection, and then buried at a cattle burial site. Practices of other “Units” are yet to be studied.

One thing is certain: The inmates were sadistically tortured died a slow death. Those were the factories of extremely savage, inevitable and painfully slow deaths!

Nevertheless, however hopeless the situation was, not all inmates accepted their fate obediently and gave up without a fight. Inmate uprisings happened even in the prison of “Unit 731”. At least, that was the case in summer 1945. Reochiro Hottah, a supply officer of the Unit, told the story of the uprising. The account provided by a former Japanese military man is grotesquely impassive and has no hint of a slightest emotion, which is revolting, of course, yet that’s everything we’ve got. “I studied at the training center with Magura, a medical officer, who also happened to be my roommate…In summer 1945 Magura invited me to the laboratory where he worked. I was a bit late, and when I came I saw that he was extremely nervous and angry with something. I asked him what had made him angry, and he told me that about inmates put up a resistance… In two or three days he told me that one of the subjects he used turned wild and hit a lab assistant with a door handle. Having done this, the inmate ran out of the ward and down the corridor, then seized the keys and opened several wards. Some inmates managed to come out, but those were brave ones, who later were shot down”.

Who was that brave man so strong in spirit? Was he Russian? Was he Chinese? No, he “turned wild” – he rose up! And he didn’t hit a “lab assistant” – he hit a butcher. And he didn’t “seize” the keys – he rather ripped them out of another “lab assistant’s” or jailer’s hand having punched the latter with all his might. Yet how and where we can get the true story, which is buried in boundless and walled-up archives? It would be most helpful to learn about those two who deserve to be discussed thoroughly.  

Demchenko, a Russian soldier

We must find him. It seems that he is still deemed to be missing. Yet even a most experiences gendarme who managed tortures was astonished at his manly behavior, unyielding stamina in his duty of a soldier and allegiance to the oath, his boundless loyalty to the Motherland. Lieutenant Yamagishi Kenji was deputy to the head of “Hogoin” Camp and headed the information and investigation department. His official duties were extremely interesting. According to him, he had to “collect information about economical, political and military context in the USSR, an identify people prone to escaping, who failed to observe the camp regime, and who carried on propaganda against Japan. Those who were hostile to Japan and those who refused to observe the camp regimen were sent to “Unit 731”. At different points of time in 1945 I sent about 40 Soviet citizens there”. Mind that he accounted for 1945 only! In fact, the camp performed “special dispatches” since the beginning of 1942. However, Kenji came to the camp in 1944. Thus, his “official consciousness” was burdened with far more injustices against Soviet people. By the way, he spoke Russian fluently.

That was Yamagishi Kenji who dealt with Demchenko – and who never forgot him. His recollections of Demchenko were so vivid that he himself admitted that “I don’t remember last names of those whom I sent to die in “Unit 731”. I still remember just one last name of a Soviet soldier, who flatly refused to provide any information about the Soviet Union. Upon my approval, measures of physical coercion were applied, and he was tortured by the investigators who tied his hands and legs and hung him from a beam. However, Demchenko still refused to testify”. And he never did. Even the heartless samurai was astonished at Demchenko’s fighting spirit. Might it be him who rose up in the prison? He was the one who would succeed!

Yet all we know about Demchenko is his brave feat – he acted and behaved like a hero. A Red Army man Sulukhiya (in 1942) and Junior Sergeant Yuriy Smirnov (in 1944) were honored post-mortem as Heroes of the Soviet Union for the same feat of heroism – they refused to disclose anything about their Motherland even under torture. However, to prove Demchenko’s right to be awarded with such a high title, we need to find him. Who was he? Where was he born? Where did he live? Are there any relatives alive? Where was he drafted to the Army from, and where did he serve?

Demchenko is waiting. He counted on us. He accomplished his feat for us, just as a martyr, an Unknown Mother, whose fate in the most sinister prison of the nastiest “Unit 731” was the most grievous and heavy.

Haerbin Lady

Even after all these years it’s hard to reopen the wound!
Even adults couldn’t take it for long. It all starts with an acute injustice – an unfathomable woman, a mother who had suffered so much and hard remains nameless. One thing is certain – even Our Lady’s fate was easier to bear!

I chose this comparison deliberately. These women have a few things in common. First of all, they both were born to be executed. In April 1941 Kawashima Kiyoshi was the first to tell us about the Unknown Mother whom he interrogated. “I still was new in the Unit. I visited the prison and in a ward I spotted two Russian women one of whom had a one-year-old toddler who was born in the prison”.

Just imagine how it was to give birth and to feed a child in that horrible prison, in a ward that I described above! No, compared to this, conditions in a warm stable in which Our Lady gave birth to Jesus while being surrounded by her close ones instead of cruelest jailors and not being afraid of executors whom she could barely look into their eyes, and not being deprived of the last hope of a mother hopelessly helpless against their will and desires. Lady Maria also was in danger, yet that danger was far from being so relentless, predestined and inevitable.

Any baby needs care. He could not help crying when he needed a fresh diaper, when he has stomachache or when he suffered from stuffiness of the ward. Yet what could she do about it? How could she help him? Of course, he started crying when she was not around. She wasn’t able to breast-feed him properly since her milk must have turned sour, let alone contaminated after some “experiment”, taking into account her own condition. She could not get proper clothes for him. She had no choice but to use whatever jailers provided her with.

It seems that even God was helpless to relieve her deepest motherly sufferings and agony accompanied by deadly endless anxiety and grieves. At any moment “lab assistants” could snatch the baby out of her hands. And the worst part here was that he would be made a subject in their “experiments”. And any day she could die leaving the cherished one alone without her care and warm embrace at jailers’ mercy and, thus, inevitably helpless and vulnerable.

General Kawashima was anxious to emphasize that while he served in the Unit, “the women were alive”. He stayed there until March 1943. This may mean that the baby was alive until at least the age of three. Those three years were bound to be filled with immense stress for the one who never ceased to stop fearing the “lab assistants” who could snatch the baby out of her hands and make him a subject in their foul “experiments”! For three long years she was waiting death which could come any day and any moment! It there a person in the world who could bear all that!

I do want to believe that the baby stayed alive. Maybe, he was put in foster care. It seems that the investigators shared the same hope and kept asking those under investigation what happened to the mother and the child. Yet all they got was the answer that no one ever survived their stay in the prison.

No Japanese heard or paid any attention to crying of the nameless child, like they failed to look into the eyes of his mother whom they assisted in delivery. They just couldn’t hear and see. The Japanese love children. Yet that goes only for their children.

All the foregoing is documented. Will she ever be honored as a holy martyr by the Church? And will the issue ever be raised? I can’t say. Yet with all my heart I will keep calling her Haerbin Lady until my dying day.

The last operation performed by the Kwantung bacteriological “fighters” took place on 20^th August 1945 when they were already ordered to surrender. The operation was organized by military men of a branch of “Unit 100” – they contaminated 60 horses with glanders and let them go. It was more than meaningless!

In 1946 the trigger-happy US president Harry Truman all of a sudden threatened the USSR with bacteriological warfare in addition to a nuclear war. It was the first time such threat was issued. At the beginning of 1950s the US military forces used bacteriological weapons in Korea. Again, it was the first time such weapon was used. Since then it has been improved dramatically.

People say that Ishii died in 1990s. Yet we are not the ones to judge.

Y. EFIMENKO