‘And it was a dangerous job.
‘During our exploration of brucellosis, my entire team succumbed to it. The same with tularemia. There were casualties in the workshop. Many of my fellow scientists succumbed.
‘Many of my fellow scientists died.
‘And many, many went mad.
‘But it was a race against time because we knew the Germans, the Soviets and the Japanese were already ahead of us in the game.
‘Especially the Japs. For we knew, even then, we knew –
‘For in 1944, I was called into the office of the Scientific Director, Dr Oram C. Woolpert; Intelligence had received news of Jap germ warfare attacks on the Chinese in Manchuria –
‘Tommy, we think they’ve killed a lot of people,’ he told me. ‘We think they’ve been poisoning reservoirs, poisoning wells …’
‘So we knew, even then, we all knew.
‘Then, in the Summer of 1945, General MacArthur personally requested that I join him in Manila to await the coming assault on the Japanese mainland. So I flew to Manila. I went straight to MacArthur’s headquarters. I met with General MacArthur, General Charles Willoughby and Karl T. Compton. I had met Compton before. I knew he was the former president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that he was a civilian who wore the three stars of a lieutenant general, the chief of Scientific Intelligence. I had not met Willoughby before. But I knew he was the head of G-2, US Military Intelligence. And I had not met General MacArthur before. But I immediately liked him. I immediately respected him. He knew the weight of the responsibility he was carrying. He also knew the dangers of BW. The General asked me what I thought. He asked me what I feared. He listened to me and then the General said –
‘We need you very badly here, Tommy.’
‘Then they told me about Operations Olympia and Coronet, the planned land, sea and air assaults on the Japanese home islands. They told me I would go ashore at H plus 6; H plus 6 meant six hours after the first bombardment; H plus 6 meant the very first wave of assault troops –
‘Be careful not to break your test tubes, Tommy,’ laughed the General. And so I waited. And I waited.
‘But H plus 6 never came.
‘The first bomb was dropped on August 6, the second bomb on August 9, and the Japs surrendered on August 15. But I was already on my way to Japan aboard the USS Sturgis. For I had been given a new mission. This time I had been well briefed.
‘This time they had knocked. This time they had introduced themselves. They told me they were from G-2. They told me they were from Scientific Intelligence. They said I was the top man in biological warfare. They said I was needed in Japan. My mission was to find out as much as I could, and as quickly as I could, about the Jap biological warfare programme. About Unit 731. About Unit 100.
‘About Shirō Ishii; they told me to find Ishii.
‘But the Japs had been told about me.
‘The Japs were waiting for me …’
And now a bundle of envelopes, a heavy, heavy wad of envelopes bound and tied with another length of rope, a thick, thick cord, falls from a dead pocket of the swinging suit and now you crawl, on your hands and on your knees, into the centre of the occult circle and you tear open these heavy, heavy envelopes and pull out a thick, thick wad of papers, and by the light of the nine candles, in the upper chamber of the Black Gate, you read through these papers, these papers that are half-letters / half-documents, sometimes hand-scrawled / sometimes type-written, but always tear-stained and already blood-blotted, you read, always tear-stained and already blood-blotted, among strange balloons, among green crosses,
you read, stained and blotted, you are
among strange balloons, among
green crosses, always stained,
already blotted …
The Fourth Candle — The (Dead) Letters of an American
Marked PERSONAL
Dai-Ichi Hotel, Tokyo, Japan
September 18, 1945
My dearest Peggy,
I hope this letter finds you & the children all well.
I am well, so please do not worry about me (even though I know you do). I am only sorry that I have not been able to write to you sooner, but work has been very busy since I left Manila.
I doubt I will ever forget my first sight of Japan’s coastline. It stretched before us like a long thin line of green earth with a thin line of white surf. It looked peaceful & un-peopled — no smoking chimneys, or trains, or traffic. Of course, it was an illusion!
We finally docked in Japan at Yokohama on August 21st & from day one I have found this to be a very strange place & the Japs to be a very strange people. Of course, their country is completely hurt & ruined in a way that is unimaginable to people back home. Our bombing of Tokyo, & I suppose of most other cities, certainly hit the Japanese home, right where the average man would feel it most. One can hardly believe the reports in American papers that the Japs do not know they lost the war. The evidence of it is everywhere, inescapable, & in many respects permanent. There are places here where, as far as one can see, lies only miles of rubble. Some temples & museums are gone for good, & the rest will take decades to restore. The ordinary people look ragged & distraught. They remind me of timid mice (but there are others among them who are as sharp as rats). The children are the friendliest.
As you know, my mission is to find out as much as I can about the Japanese biological warfare program. However, it seems the Japs already know more about me than I know about them!
My interpreter is called Dr Naito & he was waiting for me on the quayside at Yokohama. He actually had a photograph of me taken back at Camp Detrick (& heaven only knows how he got hold of that). He walked up the gangway to meet me & his first words were, ‘Dr Thompson, I presume?’
Naito is very friendly but is not to be trusted and I’ll give you an example of what it is like here with some of them. The first night I was in Tokyo, Naito took me out for dinner to one of the big hotels (there is still the good life here for some of them). The hotel restaurant was in the traditional Japanese style, very Spartan with mats & sliding doors. Naito even unlaced my shoes for me! He then introduced me to this very old, tiny Jap who said, ‘Welcome to Japan, Dr Thompson. I hope you like tempura?’
Naito told me that the man was a senior vice-president of a major Japanese company, the equivalent of our General Electric. Then dozens of waitresses appeared in kimonos with trays of Japanese food & alcohol. Naito & the old man proposed lots of toasts to new friendships & they were most impressed I could use their chopsticks. But at the end of the evening the old man suddenly said, ‘How would Dr Thompson like to earn $5,000 a week for the rest of his life?’
I imagined your reaction & I laughed & I said who wouldn’t want to earn $5,000 a week for the rest of their life! But then the old man said, ‘Well, it’s very easy. By doing nothing!’