Photo released on Aug. 14, 2015 by the State Archives Administration of China on its website shows the Chinese version of an excerpt from Japanese war criminal Takashi Mikami's handwritten confession. A Japanese World War II war criminal helped harvest brains from live Chinese captives for a sergeant who believed eating them would treat his venereal disease, according to a confession published by the State Archives Administration on Friday. The shocking admission from Corporal Takashi Mikami, who served in east China's Shandong Province from 1942 until his capture in August 1945, comes in the fourth of a series of 31 handwritten confessions from Japanese war criminals being released online by the archives as China marks the 70th anniversary of the end of WWII. He explained that while stationed in Linqing County, Sergeant Getsuji "often ordered platoon members to collect living people's brains." In June 1942, Mikami asked Lance Corporal Yokokura to "get some brains during mopping up." In Guantao County in August 1942, Mikami interrogated two Chinese peasants using torture. As one of the captives refused to talk, Second Lieutenant Oyagi said, "'Let the new recruits test their courage,' so along with five others, I bayoneted the peasant in the chest, killing him, and then buried him in a pit," according to the confession. (Photo/Xinhua)
