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KATAYAMA, CHIKAE (nee SAKAI) [Marginal Note: (KIU) ] Statement of Katayama (8-10 July 1947) 34, female, changed name by marriage first of July 1947. For 15 years prior to marriage worked in anatomy section of KIU medical college under Hirako. She prepared microscopic slides from various organs brought by anatomy section, assistant doctors. Each slide is numbered. She brought these slides to the students for study in their classes. During the war because of the shortage of help she helped Hirako on paper work from time to time. She also kept his office clean, sometimes helped him dissect animals. Katayama worked in the lab next to Hirako's office. During April, May, June and July 1945 worked only mornings, leaving between 1330 and 1400. The paper work Ishiyama did was mainly copying Hirako's notes when he wrote articles for' magazines, mainly about the brain. He dissected animals to study the brain arteries. The slides Katayama prepared were taken from bodies dissected in anatomy; the last slides she made was in May 1945. About May Katayama saw Ishiyama and other doctors go down toward the anatomy dissection room about 1000. They took some equipment from a stor room across the hall from the dissecting room and brought it inot the dissection room. On the way to the rest room between 1200-1300, Katayama noticed that the windows from the hallway to the dissection room were covered with cardboard and she could not see in. The outside windows of the dissection room were not covered except where broken. However the door was open and Katayama saw 2 dissection tables set up in the middle .of the floor, a little unusual because there was no dissection going on at that time. No one was in the room. Katayama believes the ceiling of the dissection room was of painted boards, taken off later because a fire hazard. The following day, after dinner, when in the servants room, Katayama looked out the window, saw a truck stop in back of the anatomy building and several Japanese soldiers jumped out of the truck, as she came back into the main hallway she noticed the doors leading to the dissection room and training room next to it had been closed and there was a sign on the door that said, ”This hallway is not to be used after 1:00 o’ clock.M Katayama went back to her office came out 10-15 minutes later, saw a soldier posted by the door leading toward the dissection room. On her way to the servants room, the door leading toward the dissection room had been open and Katayama saw some doctors walking in the hallway nearby and some men in uniform. The next morning Takata told Katayama that a PW was operated on and his body taken to the crematory, that he had been told by Hirako to bring the bones back. Some time after that Katayama heard that flyers parachuted down out in the country and were hurt, that they were American, were taken to KIU and operations were performed on them. Katayama heard there were 4 Prisoners brought in for operations. On 17 August Hirako was on vacation. While cleaning his office, she found 2 envelopes of bones, and it said "POW" on the outside. Katayama thought that Hirako might get in trouble if these were found so she emptied them in a newspaper, folded KATAYAMA -2- it, left it on his desk, burned the envelopes out in the yard. Katayama left shortly after that for about 7 days, told him when she returned, and he said, "Oh, is that so?" Katayama had seen the envelopes on a shelf in Hirako's office since a few days after Takata told Katayama about having to cremate bodies of PWs, so she knew about them. The words "prisoner of war” were on each and the date. It was in Hirako's hand, in Japanese. She doesn’t know what Hirako then did with the ashes. |