Genitals of female prisoners that were infected with syphilis were called "jam-filled buns" by guards.[68]. Weeping redness of the skin of the upper part of the body. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. Unit100 also experimented with toxic gas. A Japanese soldier uses a Chinese mans body for bayonet practice near Tianjin, China. 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." Some of the agents tested were mustard gas, lewisite, cyanic acid gas, white phosphorus, adamsite, and phosgene gas. The first focused on experimenting with bacteriological diseases, including the bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, typhoid, and tuberculosis. Venereal disease has been the bane of organized militaries since ancient Egypt, and so it stands to reason that the Japanese military would take an interest in the symptoms and treatment of syphilis. Sixty minutes later the pulse was 106 per minute and the temperature was 39.4 degrees. And out of all the atrocities that Imperial Japan unleashed upon the Chinese people during this brutal occupation, probably none were as gratuitously hateful as the operations of Unit 731, the Japanese biological warfare unit that somehow plumbed new depths in what was already a genocidal war. Some of Unit731's satellite (branch) facilities are still in use by various Chinese industrial companies. This was all in a day's work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time. Infected food supplies and clothing were dropped by airplane into areas of China not occupied by Japanese forces. The gas was adamsite (sneezing gas), and as the gas filled the chamber the man went into violent coughing convulsions and began to suffer excruciating pain. Corporal Kikuchi Norimitsu testified that he was told by another unit member that a prisoner "had shown violence and had struck the experimenter with a door handle" and then "jumped out of the cell and ran down the corridor, seized the keys and opened the iron doors and some of the cells. Among those accused of war crimes, including germ warfare, was General Otoz Yamada, commander-in-chief of the million-man Kwantung Army occupying Manchuria. "[68] The children of these women were tested in ways similar to their parents, with specific emphasis on determining how longer infection periods affected the effectiveness of treatments. Though "a large number of babies were born in captivity", there have been no accounts of any survivors of Unit731, children included. November 1940. Then, have a look at four of the most evil science experiments ever performed and find out whether or not any of the highly disturbing Nazi research actually contributed anything to medical science. Vivisection, for example, is the practice of mutilating human bodies, without anesthesia, to study the operations of living systems. And to study the effects of high G-forces on pilots and falling paratroopers, Unit 731 personnel loaded human beings into large centrifuges and spun them at higher and higher speeds until they lost consciousness and/or died, which usually happened around 10 to 15 Gs, though young children showed a lower tolerance for acceleration forces. In addition, poisoned food and candy were given to unsuspecting victims. Xinhua via Getty ImagesUnit 731 personnel conduct a bacteriological trial upon a test subject in Nongan County of northeast Chinas Jilin Province. Despite innocent beginnings as a research and public health agency, Unit 731 eventually grew into an assembly line for weaponized diseases that, if fully deployed, could have killed everyone on Earth several times over. The gruesome professionalism of Unit 731 included a touch of sardonic humor. After Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Ishii Shiro created Unit 731 and began testing biological weapons on unwilling human test subjects. [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. The tales of World War II are replete with innumerable accounts . With the coming of the Red Army in August1945, the unit had to abandon their work in haste. When AB type blood 120 cc was transfused to an O type subject, an hour later the subject described malaise and psychroesthesia in both legs. Another group was clothed in summer military uniform and shoes; three had masks and another three had no mask. [114] The sentences doled out to the Japanese perpetrators were unusually lenient by Soviet standards, and all but two of the defendants returned to Japan by the 1950s (with one prisoner dying in prison and the other committing suicide inside his cell). One thing is for certainno prisoner, whether man, woman, or child, got out alive. Whenever prisoners died after the experiments they had been subjected to, a clerk of the 1stDivision struck their numbers off an index card and took the deceased prisoner's manacles to be put on new arrivals to the prison.[90]. The Japanese government has also failed to grant the OSI meaningful access to these and related records after the war, while European countries, on the other hand, have been largely cooperative, "Unit 731" (2011), Power electronic band Brandkommando, "And You Will Beg for Our Secrets" (2016), from the. After World WarII, the Office of Special Investigations created a watchlist of suspected Axis collaborators and persecutors who are banned from entering the United States. One of the most common experiments at Unit 731 was the vivisection of diseased bodies. [1] Japan's occupation of Manchuria began in 1931 after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. Xinhua via Getty ImagesA Unit 731 doctor operates on a patient that is part of a bacteriological experiment. He infected prisoners with rickettsia and infected mentally-ill patients with typhus. Eyelids edematous, swollen. September 8, 1940, 6 am: Neck, breast, upper abdomen and scrotum weeping, Unit 731 was one of six human experimentation sites financially supported by the Imperial Japanese government during the Second World War. ; Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity", Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Biohazard: Unit 731 and the American Cover-Up", "The 1925 Geneva Protocol: China's CBW Charges Against Japan at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal", "Unmasking Horror A special report. Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. [19], A special project, codenamed Maruta, used human beings for experiments. Female prisoners were forced to become pregnant for use in experiments. ][65] Yoshimura developed a "resistance index of frostbite" based on the mean temperature 5 to 30minutes after immersion in freezing water, the temperature of the first rise after immersion, and the time until the temperature first rises after immersion. Once at the inner-prison, technicians would take samples of the prisoners' blood and stool, test their kidney function, and collect other physical data. RT @EzbyThor: Japan's notorious Unit 731 personnel not only avoided punishment, they were even encouraged to continue their abominable experiments on mentally ill patients in Japan. [The subjects] suffered such agony they were digging their nails into each other's flesh". [127] The information was from the country's national archives. 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. Unit 731 was a biological warfare research division of the Imperial Japanese Army, which was founded in 1936. . To this end, Unit 731 cycled through tens of thousands of captives at several facilities across Manchuria, which had been occupied by imperial forces for years. They show what humans are capable of when they are given free rein to experiment on other human beings. The purpose of these tests was to determine the amount of water in an individual's body and to see how long one could survive with a very low to no water intake. Ishii organized a secret research group, the "Tg Unit", for chemical and biological experimentation in Manchuria. [36] This research led to the development of the defoliation bacilli bomb and the flea bomb used to spread bubonic plague. Unit members orchestrated forced sex acts between infected and noninfected prisoners to transmit the disease, as the testimony of a prison guard on the subject of devising a method for transmission of syphilis between patients shows: Infection of venereal disease by injection was abandoned, and the researchers started forcing the prisoners into sexual acts with each other. The effectiveness of various weapons was of obvious interest to the Japanese Army. 1936-1945: Unit 731 the Asian Auschwitz was a massive biological warfare research program of the Japanese Imperial Army under the command of Lt. General Dr. Ishii Shiro in Pin Fang, Manchuria outside the city of Harbin. Members of Unit 731 were not immune from being subjects of experiments. A Youth Corps member deployed to train at Unit731 recalled viewing a batch of subjects that would undergo syphilis testing: "one was a Chinese woman holding an infant, one was a White Russian woman with a daughter of four or five years of age, and the last was a White Russian woman with a boy of about six or seven. Unit 731 (731) led by Japanese microbiologist Shiro Ishii, was a covert biological warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook human experimentation mainly on Chinese, Koreans, and Russians, during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II. [14], A prison break in the autumn of 1934, which jeopardized the facility's secrecy, and an explosion in 1935 (believed to be sabotage) led Ishii to shut down Zhongma Fortress. In this way, Unit 731 was performing the service of human experimentation for the entire Japanese medical community, in an on-going feedback loop. Yoshimura Hisato, a physiologist assigned to Unit 731, took a special interest in hypothermia. All under the auspices of the US govt, ofc. The unit conducted cruel and inhumane . Thousands of prisoners were killed in cruel human experiments at Unit 731, which was based near the northeastern China city of Harbin, north of the Korean peninsula and on a border with Russia. A report authored by unknown researcher in the Kamo Unit (Unit731) describes a large human experiment of yperite gas (mustard gas) on 710September 1940. Established by Emperor Hirohito in 1936, Unit 731's exact mission varied over the course of its operations, but two main focuses remained constant. The opening of the new Museum of War Crime Evidence by Japanese Army Unit 731 on Aug. 15 in Harbin in northeast China was timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, part of commemorations across China that included a major Victory Day military parade in Beijing on Sept. 3. To name a few, prisoners were exposed to tetrodotoxin (pufferfish or fugu venom), heroin, Korean bindweed, bactal, and castor-oil seeds (ricin). In other tests, subjects were deprived of food and water to determine the length of time until death; placed into low-pressure chambers until their eyes popped from the sockets; experimented upon to determine the relationship between temperature, burns, and human survival; hung upside down until death; crushed with heavy objects; electrocuted; dehydrated with hot fans;[49] placed into centrifuges and spun until death; injected with animal blood, notably with horse blood; exposed to lethal doses of X-rays; subjected to various chemical weapons inside gas chambers; injected with seawater; and burned or buried alive. Low morale. Later in 1981, one of the last surviving members of the Tokyo Tribunal, Judge Rling, had expressed bitterness in not being made aware of the suppression of evidence of Unit 731 and wrote, "It is a bitter experience for me to be informed now that centrally ordered Japanese war criminality of the most disgusting kind was kept secret from the court by the U.S. . [11] Japan decided to build Unit 731 in Manchuria because the occupation not only gave the Japanese an advantage of separating the research station from their island, but also gave them access to as many Chinese individuals as they wanted for use as human experimental subjects. To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied. Unit 731 was a Japanese biological warfare research unit that operated during WWII. I sanitised his whole body with disinfectant. [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]. The Unit731 complex covered six square kilometers (2.3sqmi) and consisted of more than 150buildings. Originally set up by the Kenpeitai military police of the Empire of Japan, Unit731 was taken over and commanded until the end of the war by General Shir Ishii, a combat medic officer in the Kwantung Army. ", Prisoners were injected with diseases, disguised as vaccinations,[25] to study their effects. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed at least 400,000 Chinese civilians. It was surgery for most, autopsies for the rest. In one case, at least half a liter of blood was drawn at two-to-three-day intervals.[54]. Ishii ran Unit 731 as his own personal house of horrors. [1] The Americans co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own biological warfare program, much like what had been done with Nazi German researchers in Operation Paperclip. Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, vacuum chamber experiments on humans, vivisection, amputation, and standard weapons testing. In 1984, Japanese historian Tsuneishi Keiichi translated and published over 4,000 pages of U.S. documents on Japanese biological warfare. Unit 731 was split into eight divisions. Xinhua via Getty ImagesUnit 731 researchers conduct bacteriological experiments with captive child subjects in Nongan County of northeast Chinas Jilin Province. [72], At least 3,000 men, women, and children[3]:117[71]from which at least 600 every year were provided by the Kenpeitai[73]were subjected to Unit731 experimentation conducted at the Pingfang camp alone, not including victims from other medical experimentation sites such as Unit 100. It had around 4,500containers to be used to raise fleas, six cauldrons to produce various chemicals, and around 1,800containers to produce biological agents. 94111; A Short History of Biological Warfare (PDF) p. 12, A Short History of Biological Warfare (PDF) p. 27, Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department, war crimes committed by the Japanese armed forces, biological weapons facility in Sverdlovsk, List of war apology statements issued by Japan, List of Japanese-run internment camps during World War II, List of Axis personnel indicted for war crimes, Poison laboratory of the Soviet secret services, Unethical human experimentation in the United States, "Unmasking Horror A special report. Estimates of those killed by Unit731 and its related programs range up to half a million people, and none of the inmates survived. [55] A former army major and technician gave the following testimony anonymously (at the time of the interview, this man was a professor emeritus at a national university): In 1943, I attended a poison gas test held at the Unit 731 test facilities. All this progress was, of course, built on the limitless suffering of human captives, who were held as test subjects and walking disease incubators until Unit 731 was shut down at the end of the war. Beyond just the syphilis experiments, rape became a common feature of Unit 731s experiments. [93] The inner-prison was a highly secured building complete with cast iron doors. 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. The testimony of a unit member that served as a guard graphically demonstrated this reality: One of the former researchers I located told me that one day he had a human experiment scheduled, but there was still time to kill. At death, the corpses would only weigh 1/5 normal bodyweight.". Unit 731 was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Japanese armed forces. Then, over several days, prisoners were eventually drained of blood and deprived of nutrients and water. [131], In 1997, international lawyer Knen Tsuchiya filed a class action suit against the Japanese government, demanding reparations for the actions of Unit731, using evidence filed by Professor Makoto Ueda of Rikkyo University. The subject was not pursued further by Sutton, who was probably unaware of Unit731's activities. One group was clothed with Chinese underwear, no hat, and no mask and was subjected to as much as 1,800 field gun rounds of yperite gas over 25minutes. Some were also vivisected. [6], One graduate of Unit 1644, Masami Kitaoka, continued to perform experiments on unwilling Japanese subjects from 1947 to 1956. Professional people, too, like to play. I cut him open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony. Richard Stockton is a freelance science and technology writer from Sacramento, California. Hisato then tried different methods for rapid rewarming of the frozen appendage. Body temperature 37 degrees Celsius. These bombs enabled Japanese soldiers to launch biological attacks, infecting agriculture, reservoirs, wells, as well as other areas, with anthrax- and plague-carrier fleas, typhoid, cholera, or other deadly pathogens. Unit 731 started out as a research unit, investigating the effects of disease and injury on the fighting ability of an armed force. "The Imperial Japanese Experiments in China". [133] In April2018, the National Archives of Japan released the names of 3,607members of Unit731, in response to a request by Professor Katsuo Nishiyama of the Shiga University of Medical Science.[134][135]. At least 12 large-scale bioweapon field trials were carried out, and at least 11 Chinese cities attacked with biological agents. Xinhua via Getty ImagesJapanese personnel in protective suits carry a stretcher through Yiwu, China during Unit 731s germ warfare tests. Male prisoners infected with syphilis would be told to rape female prisoners as well as male prisoners in order to see how syphilis spreads in the body. Approximately 30 kilograms (66lb) of bubonic plague bacteria could be produced in a few days. Unit 731 was set up in 1938 in Japanese-occupied China with the aim of developing biological weapons. [132], In October2003, a member of Japan's House of Representatives filed an inquiry. Testimony from multiple guards blames the female victims as being hosts of the diseases, even as they were forcibly infected. In 1958, Japanese author Shsaku End published the book The Sea and Poison about human experimentation in Fukuoka, which is thought to have been based on a real incident. The unit is estimated to have killed between 200,000 and 300,000 people. The New York Times interviewed a former member of Unit 731. Two hours later the temperature was 37.7 degrees, and three hours later the subject recovered. Unit 731 was housed within 150 buildings with a staff of 3,000. During biological bomb experiments, researchers dressed in protective suits would examine the dying victims. [96] One staff member, who was an eyewitness at this escape attempt, recalled: "spiritually we were all lost in front of the 'marutas' who had no freedom and no weapons. The author Seiichi Morimura published The Devil's Gluttony[ja] () in 1981, followed by The Devil's Gluttony: A Sequel in 1983. Unit 731 researchers conduct bacteriological experiments with captive child subjects in Nongan County of northeast Chinas Jilin Province. The occupying US government undertook the cover-up of Japanese war crimes after the end of World War II, granting political immunity to military personnel who had engaged in human experimentation and other crimes against humanity, predominantly in mainland China. In James M. Ludes, Henry Sokolski (eds.). Administration" of the Imperial Japanese Army, Unit 731 and Unit 100, as well as their subsidiary branches, performed human experimentation on the innocents under the leadership of Dr. Ishii Shiro. Human targets were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in various positions. Whenever he moved, a rope around his neck tightened. [6] The United States covered up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. Tamura recalled: Sud had, a few days previously, been interested in talking about women, but now he was thin as a rake, with many purple spots over his body. Presiding judge Koji Iwata ruled that Unit731, on the orders of the Imperial Japanese Army headquarters, used bacteriological weapons on Chinese civilians between 1940 and 1942, spreading diseases, including plague and typhoid, in the cities of Quzhou, Ningbo, and Changde. 13 Apr 2023 06:39:48 A few years after World War I, the Geneva Protocol prohibited the use of chemical and biological weapons during wartime in 1925. While he was there, he watched footage of human experiments and executions from Unit731. 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. Ishii had wanted to use biological weapons in the Pacific War since May1944, but his attempts were repeatedly snubbed. [52][53] Massive amounts of blood were drained from some prisoners in order to study the effects of blood loss according to former Unit731 vivisectionist Okawa Fukumatsu. Its records were mostly burned, destroying any useful information the team had managed to generate in 13 years of research. There was a Chinese woman in there who had been used in a frostbite experiment. It is known that victims were also starved before these tests began. [127], In 1983, the Japanese Ministry of Education asked Japanese historian Sabur Ienaga to remove a reference from one of his textbooks that stated Unit 731 conducted experiments on thousands of Chinese. NHK Documentary. [46] Victims were also tied to stakes and used as targets to test pathogen-releasing bombs, chemical weapons, shrapnel bombs with varying amounts of fragments, and explosive bombs as well as bayonets and knives. [3]:60,84,124,310, A medical school and research facility belonging to Unit731 operated in the Shinjuku District of Tokyo during World WarII. Additionally, Unit 731 produced biological weapons that were used in areas of China not occupied by Japanese forces, which included Chinese cities and towns, water sources, and fields. [20] In a further parallel, the corpses of "sacrificed" subjects were disposed of by incineration. These resulted in loss of life and extreme suffering. To learn what they needed to know, doctors assigned to Unit 731 infected victims with the disease and withheld treatment to observe the uninterrupted course of the illness. Study methods in these experiments were barbaric. Then, the lesson over, the surgeon pulled out a gun and shot and killed the patient.[78][79][80] A member of the Yokusan Sonendan paramilitary political youth branch, who worked for Unit731, stated that not only were Chinese, Russians, and Koreans present, but also Americans, British, and French people. [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. Hyperemic conjunctivae. To this day, Japan has not apologized for, and China has not forgiven, the countless atrocities Japanese forces visited upon China between 1931 and 1945. None of the Japanese scientists in Unit 731 was ever punished. The ministry alleged that no academic research supported the claim. [59] The following is an excerpt of one of these reports: September 7, 1940, 6 pm: Tired and exhausted. Unit 731 was the creation of a brutal psychopath, Lieutenant-General Ishii Shiro. He painfully cried and breathed with difficulty. While male prisoners were often used in single studies, so that the results of the experimentation on them would not be clouded by other variables, women were sometimes used in bacteriological or physiological experiments, sex experiments, and as the victims of sex crimes. 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. [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. Date unspecified. In addition to the experimentation in Manchukuo, the Japanese ran human experimentation units all over, such as Unit Ei 1644 in Nanjing and Unit 2646 in inner Mongolia. [110], The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal heard only one reference to Japanese experiments with "poisonous serums" on Chinese civilians. MacArthur struck a deal with Japanese informants:[108] he secretly granted immunity to the physicians of Unit731, including their leader, in exchange for providing America, but not the other wartime allies, with their research on biological warfare and data from human experimentation. November 1940. All levels of the Japanese court system found the suit baseless. Twenty subjects were divided into three groups and placed in combat emplacements, trenches, gazebos, and observatories. June 1942. Wikimedia CommonsUnit 731s Harbin facility. They spanned all the way to Singapore, as well, with Unit 9420.Unit 731 was just one out of several, but it became infamous once the extent and variety of its atrocities became known to the public. All of these units comprised Ishii's network, which, at its height in 1939, oversaw over 10,000 personnel. Unit 731 personnel conduct a bacteriological trial upon a test subject in Nongan County of northeast Chinas Jilin Province. [116], As above, during the United States occupation of Japan, the members of Unit731 and the members of other experimental units were allowed to go free. Weakness of all four extremeties. Detachments included Unit 1855 in Beijing, Unit Ei 1644 in Nanjing, Unit 8604 in Guangzhou, and later Unit 9420 in Singapore. Feels sick. [17], His younger brother, Prince Mikasa, toured the Unit 731 headquarters in China, and wrote in his memoir that he watched films showing how Chinese prisoners were "made to march on the plains of Manchuria for poison gas experiments on humans. From August1940 on, the units were known collectively as the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army" () or "Unit731" (731) for short. 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?". Unit731 tested many different chemical agents on prisoners and had a building dedicated to gas experiments. And as the concept of consent went out the window, so did the restraint of the researchers. Body temperature 37 degrees Celsius. A large area of scratches on his chest were bleeding. Plague-infected fleas, bred in the laboratories of Unit731 and Unit1644, were spread by low-flying airplanes over Chinese cities, including coastal Ningbo and Changde, Hunan Province, in 1940 and 1941. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. Unit 731 (731), based in the Pingfang district of Harbin and led by the infamous Japanese microbiologist Shiro Ishii, was a covert biological warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II. In addition, poisoned food and candy were given to unsuspecting victims upper part of a trial... 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One of the inmates survived had a building dedicated to gas experiments Ishii had wanted to biological... Female prisoners were forced to become pregnant for use in experiments 2.3sqmi ) and consisted of more than.... Experiments, rape became a common feature of Unit 731 was a Japanese biological research. And at least 12 large-scale bioweapon field trials were carried out, and he screamed terribly and... Generate in 13 years of research researchers conduct bacteriological experiments with captive child subjects Nongan. Experimentation in Manchuria '' by guards. [ 68 ] in October2003, rope... Injury on the fighting ability of an armed force 93 ] the inner-prison was a secured... Were eventually drained of blood and deprived of nutrients and water group, the pulled. Inmates survived a touch of sardonic humor bomb experiments, rape became a common feature of Unit 731 was within...