They show what humans are capable of when they are given free rein to experiment on other human beings. [109] The Americans believed that the research data was valuable and did not want other nations, particularly the Soviet Union, to acquire data on biological weapons. [30], Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss. [82] Author Seiichi Morimura estimates that almost 70 percent of the victims who died in the Pingfang camp were Chinese (both military and civilian),[83] while close to 30 percent of the victims were Russian. As the last witnesses to this history grow old and die, its possible that the matter will never be addressed again. Fetal survival and damage to mother's reproductive organs were objects of interest. Operations and experiments continued until the end of the war. Inside of it, a Chinese man was blindfolded, with his hands tied around a post behind him. In the 1930s through the second China-Japan war and till the end of World War II, Unit 731 carried out horrific human experiments on the countless prisoners and villagers at Harbin, Northeastern China. Inside The Little-Known Story Of Linda Lee Cadwell And Her Marriage To Bruce Lee, Inside The Legend Of The Banshee, The Most Chilling Spirit In Celtic Folklore, What Stephen Hawking Thinks Threatens Humankind The Most, 27 Raw Images Of When Punk Ruled New York, Join The All That's Interesting Weekly Dispatch. One one occasion, he demanded a human brain to experiment on, so guards grabbed a prisoner and held him down while one of them hacked. After I had watched for about ten minutes, I could not stand it any more, and left the area. Two prisons are hidden in the center of the main building. Some of the tests have been described as "psychopathically sadistic, with no conceivable military application". At death, the corpses would only weigh 1/5 normal bodyweight.". A glass-walled chamber about three meters square [97sqft] and two meters [6.6ft] high was used. Throughout its history, Unit 731 produced research for biological weaponry. A former member of the Special Team (who insisted on anonymity) recalled in 1995 his first vivisection conducted at the Unit: He didn't struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down. The facility itself was built in 1935 as a replacement for the Zhongma Fortress, and Ishii and his team used it to expand their capabilities. He was about to rape her anyway, then he saw that her sex organ was festering, with pus oozing to the surface. She had several fingers missing and her bones were black, with gangrene set in. Nishiyama reportedly intended to publish the list online to encourage further study into the unit.[98]. Vivisection, for example, is the practice of mutilating human bodies, without anesthesia, to study the operations of living systems. Prisoners were generally well fed on a diet of rice or wheat, meat, fish, and occasionally even alcohol in order to be in normal health at the beginning of experiments. They sweated themselves to death under the heat of several hot dry fans. Weapon Test in Unit 731 Experiments It is common to test weapons before going to the war, but it is uncommon to test weapons on living humans. As part of Marutas study in limb injuries, Hisato routinely submerged captives limbs in a tub of water filled with ice and had them held until the arm or leg had frozen solid and a coat of ice had formed over the skin. An expedition to Nanjing involved spreading typhoid and paratyphoid germs into the wells, marshes, and houses of the city, as well as infusing them in snacks distributed to locals. Yoshio Tamura, an assistant in the Special Team, recalled that Yoshio Sud, an employee of the first division at Unit731, became infected with bubonic plague as a result of the production of plague bacteria. "[111], While German physicians were brought to trial and had their crimes publicized, the U.S. concealed information about Japanese biological warfare experiments and secured immunity for the perpetrators. Koizumi had joined a secret poison gas research committee in 1915, during World War I, when he and other Imperial Japanese Army officers were impressed by the successful German use of chlorine gas at the Second Battle of Ypres, in which the Allies suffered 5,000 deaths and 15,000 wounded as a result of the chemical attack. [112] Whereas the perpetrators of Unit 731 were exempt from prosecution, the U.S. held a tribunal in Yokohama in 1948 that indicted nine Japanese physician professors and medical students for conducting vivisection upon captured American pilots; two professors were sentenced to death and others to 1520 years' imprisonment.[112]. Unit 731 was a Japanese biological warfare research unit that operated during WWII. September 9, 1940, 7 am: Tired and exhausted. Ishibashi sneaked a mirror to them through a hole in the cell door. Low morale. Other sources suggest that it was the usual practice in the Unit for surgeons to stuff a rag (or medical gauze) into the mouth of prisoners before commencing vivisection in order to stifle any screaming. [40][41], During the final months of World WarII, codenamed Cherry Blossoms at Night, I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, vacuum chamber experiments on humans, vivisection, amputation, and standard weapons testing. [61] Naoji Uezono, a member of Unit 731, described in a 1980s interview a grisly scene where Yoshimura had "two naked men put in an area 4050 degrees below zero and researchers filmed the whole process until [the subjects] died. The Truth of Unit 731: Elite medical students and human experiments (2017). The two Russians opened their handcuffs, took the keys, and opened some other cells while yelling. [1], Some test subjects were selected to gather a wide cross-section of the population and included common criminals, captured bandits, anti-Japanese partisans, political prisoners, homeless and mentally disabled people, which included infants, men, the elderly and pregnant women, as well as those rounded up by the Kenpeitai military police for alleged "suspicious activities". After Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Ishii Shiro created Unit 731 and began testing biological weapons on unwilling human test subjects. Heavy objects were dropped onto bound victims to study crush injuries, subjects were locked up and deprived of food and water to learn how long humans could survive without them, and victims were allowed to drink only sea water, or were given injections of mismatched human or animal blood to study transfusions and the clotting process. It is suspected that the children of female prisoners were killed after birth or aborted.[68]. Professional people, too, like to play. When the plague bacillus had been bred to what was felt to be a sufficiently lethal caliber, the last generation of victims to be infected were exposed to huge numbers of fleas, Y. pestis preferred vector of contagion. Associated Press/LIFE via Wikimedia CommonsA Japanese soldier uses a Chinese mans body for bayonet practice near Tianjin, China. Potential witnesses, such as the 300 remaining prisoners, were either gassed or fed poison while the 600 Chinese and Manchurian laborers were shot. [71] Harris also said plague-infected animals were released near the end of the war, and caused plague outbreaks that killed at least 30,000 people in the Harbin area from 1946 to 1948. He then received authorization to move to Pingfang, approximately 24 kilometers (15mi) south of Harbin, to set up a new, much larger facility. Test subjects were gathered from the surrounding population and sometimes euphemistically referred to as "logs" (, maruta), used in such contexts as "How many logs fell?". The accusations of both the US and the USSR were true[citation needed], and it is believed that the Japanese had also given information to the Soviets regarding their biological experimentation for judicial leniency. Genitals of female prisoners that were infected with syphilis were called "jam-filled buns" by guards.[68]. Most Japanese civilian scientists before their time at Unit 731 had never used science in an unethical and malicious way. "[33], Unit731 and its affiliated units (Unit 1644 and Unit 100, among others) were involved in research, development and experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons in assaults against the Chinese populace (both military and civilian) throughout World WarII. Ishii ran Unit 731 as his own personal house of horrors. Chief of the Personnel Division of the Kwantung Army Headquarters Tamura Tadashi testified that, when he was shown the inner-prison, he looked into the cells and saw living people in chains, some moved around, others were lying on the bare floor and were in a very sick and helpless condition. Most or all Units had branch offices, which were also often referred to as "Units". According to one eyewitness account, the limbs made a sound like a plank of wood when struck with a cane. Estimates of the death toll from experiments performed on prisoners at Unit 731 range from 3,000 to 12,000. He stated that there were at least over 10,000 victims of internal experiments at the Unit and that he himself vivisected thousands. [107] Sanders took this information to General Douglas MacArthur, who was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Powers and responsible for rebuilding Japan during the Allied occupations. [102], Unit731 had branches in Linkou (Branch162), Mudanjiang, Hailin (Branch643), Sunwu (Branch673), Toan, and Hailar (Branch543). The first focused on experimenting with bacteriological diseases, including the bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, typhoid, and tuberculosis. Ishii organized a secret research group, the "Tg Unit", for chemical and biological experimentation in Manchuria. His perverted imagination was captured by the possibilities of biological and chemical warfare, and in the Japan of the 1920s and '30s, he found supporters in the increasingly nationalistic and fanatical military. [91] Prisoners were repeatedly reused for experiments as long as they were healthy enough. Although the dissemination methods of delivering plague infected fleas by aircraft were crude, the method, among others, allowed the Japanese to "conduct the most extensive employment of biological weapons during WWII." Japanese discussions of Unit731's activity began in the 1950s, after the end of the American occupation of Japan. [9][10], Japan started its biological weapons program in the 1930s, partly because biological weapons were banned by the Geneva Convention of 1925; they reasoned that the ban verified its effectiveness as a weapon. ", "Japan publishes list of members of Unit 731 imperial army branch", "Unit 731: One of the Most Terrifying Secrets of the 20th Century", Occupation censored Unit 731 ex-members' mail: secret paper, "The United States and the Japanese Mengele: Payoffs and Amnesty for Unit 731", Biohazard: The Chilling True Story of the Largest Covert Biological Weapons Program in the World Told from Inside by the Man Who Ran it, "Unit 731: Japan discloses details of notorious chemical warfare division", "Japanese Textbook Controversies, Nationalism, and Historical Memory: Intra- and Inter-national Conflicts", "Examining the Japanese History Textbook Controversies", , "Names of 3,607 members of Imperial Japanese Army's notorious Unit 731 released by national archives", "Hit manga My Hero Academia removed in China over war crimes reference", "My Hero Academia Manga Updated With Villain's New Name", "The English Fhrer by Rory Clements Historia Magazine", Orrori e misteri dell'Unit 731: la 'fabbrica' dei batteri killer, "Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army's Biological Warfare Program", The Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG), History of Japan's biological weapons program, History of United States' biological weapons program, "US paid for Japanese human germ warfare data", The Unknown Victims of Japanese Unit 731 in WWII (19321945) and Known Experiments, Select Documents on Japanese WarCrimes and Japanese Biological Warfare, 19342006, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Unit_731&oldid=1149602900, Chief of General Division, 19391941, Head of Production Division, 19411945, Lieutenant general of the Medical Service, Lieutenant general of the Veterinary Service, Lieutenant colonel of the Medical Service, 400,000 or higher from biological warfare, Over 3,000 from inside experiments from each unit (not including branches, 19401945 only), Kazuhisa Kanazawa, chief of the 1stDivision of Branch673 of Unit731, Ryoichiro Hotta, member of the Hailar Branch of Unit731, Major General Hitoshi Kikuchi, head of Research Division, 19421945, Lieutenant General [unknown first name] Yasazaka, doctor, Yoshio Furuichi, student at Sunyu Branch of Unit731, Division2: research for biological weapons used in the field, in particular the production of devices to spread germs and parasites, Division3: production of shells containing biological agents; stationed in Harbin, Division4: bacteria mass-production and storage, Divisions68: equipment, medical, and administrative units. The trial of the Japanese perpetrators was held in Khabarovsk in December1949; a lengthy partial transcript of trial proceedings was published in different languages the following year by the Moscow foreign languages press, including an English-language edition. At least 12 large-scale bioweapon field trials were carried out, and at least 11 Chinese cities attacked with biological agents. Additionally, Unit731 Youth Corps member Yoshio Shinozuka testified that his friend junior assistant Mitsuo Hirakawa was vivisected as a result of being accidentally infected with plague.[59]. A contemporary treatment, a primitive chemotherapy agent called Salvarsan, was sometimes administered over a period of months to observe the side effects, however. Unit 731 personnel conduct a bacteriological trial upon a test subject in Nongan County of northeast Chinas Jilin Province. In 1984, Japanese historian Tsuneishi Keiichi translated and published over 4,000 pages of U.S. documents on Japanese biological warfare. the plan of Unit 731 was to use kamikaze pilots to infest San Diego, California, with the plague. Had difficulties opening the eyes. [127] The information was from the country's national archives. Some prisoners were alive in the Unit for over 12months, and many female prisoners gave birth in the Unit. The gruesome professionalism of Unit 731 included a touch of sardonic humor. [citation needed], In August2002, the Tokyo district court ruled for the first time that Japan had engaged in biological warfare. [23], Nakagawa Yonezo[ja], professor emeritus at Osaka University, studied at Kyoto University during the war. [32] Yuasa said that when he performed vivisections on captives, they were "all for practice rather than for research", and that such practises were "routine" among Japanese doctors stationed in China during the war.[21]. Less discussed than the Holocaust forced on Jewish people during World War II, Unit 731 is Japan's covert biological and chemical research division that primarily operated in China between 1932 and 1945. Two hours later the temperature was 37.7 degrees, and three hours later the subject recovered. [11] They viewed the Chinese as no cost research subjects, and hoped that they could use this advantage to lead the world in biological warfare. [26], Thousands of men, women, children, and infants interned at prisoner of war camps were subjected to vivisection, often performed without anesthesia and usually lethal. A Japanese soldier uses a Chinese mans body for bayonet practice near Tianjin, China. November 1940. All under the auspices of the US govt, ofc. These bold ones were shot". Two Russian male prisoners were in a cell with handcuffs on, one of them lay flat on the floor pretending to be sick. Even if they had managed to escape the quadrangle (itself a heavily fortified building full of staff), they would have had to get over a three-meter-high (9.8ft) brick wall surrounding the complex, and then across a dry moat filled with electrified wire running around the perimeter of the complex (which can be seen in aerial pictures of the Unit).[97]. [126], In 2018, Japan disclosed the names of 3,607 members of Unit 731. The pardon of Japanese war criminals, among whom were Unit 731's commanding officers General Shiro Ishii and General Masaji Kitano . Researchers performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. Wikimedia CommonsUnit 731s Harbin facility. So he and another unit member took the keys to the cells and opened one that housed a Chinese woman. But before Unit 731 was broken up in 1945, it committed some of the most torturous human experiments in recorded history. Williams, Peter, and Wallace, David (1989). I sanitised his whole body with disinfectant. They also were exposed to as much as 1,800rounds of yperite gas. All of these units comprised Ishii's network, which, at its height in 1939, oversaw over 10,000 personnel. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women (including pregnant women) and children but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff inside the compound. June 1942. rape became a common feature of Unit 731s experiments, infected with several of the most lethal pathogens known to science, Japan likewise planned to bomb America with plague-ridden fleas, Nazi research actually contributed anything to medical science. Ishii ordered every member of the group to disappear and "take the secret to the grave". These experiments also showed how easily we can rationalize these kinds of actions if we believe that we are doing it for the greater good. In a number of separate experiments it was then determined how these parameters depend on the time of day a victim's body part was immersed in freezing water, the surrounding temperature and humidity during immersion, how the victim had been treated before the immersion ("after keeping awake for a night", "after hunger for 24 hours", "after hunger for 48 hours", "immediately after heavy meal", "immediately after hot meal", "immediately after muscular exercise", "immediately after cold bath", "immediately after hot bath"), what type of food the victim had been fed over the five days preceding the immersions with regard to dietary nutrient intake ("high protein (of animal nature)", "high protein (of vegetable nature)", "low protein intake", and "standard diet"), and salt intake (45g NaCl per day, 15g NaCl per day, no salt). The subject was not pursued further by Sutton, who was probably unaware of Unit731's activities. As explained in an internal War Department memorandum, dated June 23, 1947: "Since it is believed that the USSR possesses only a small . Mucous and bloody erosions across the shoulder girdle. In August 1945, after Hiroshima and Nagasaki had both been bombed, the Soviet Army had invaded Manchuria and utterly annihilated the Japanese Army, and the emperor read his infamous surrender declaration over the radio, Unit 731 was officially disbanded. [3]:60,84,124,310, A medical school and research facility belonging to Unit731 operated in the Shinjuku District of Tokyo during World WarII. A report authored by unknown researcher in the Kamo Unit (Unit731) describes a large human experiment of yperite gas (mustard gas) on 710September 1940. One element of the unit, called Maruta, took this research a little further than the usual bounds of medical ethics by observing injuries and the course of disease on living patients. 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