Unit 731
Unit 731
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A History of Horror
Honorable beginnings
The head of the department that would later become one of the most horrifying institutions of the second world war, Shiro Ishii gained notoriety for the development of a water purification system11. This allowed for japans expeditionary armies to use local sources of water without boiling or the use of chlorine, as water sourcing was of particular difficulty during this period.
A surviving example of this filter is pictured below.
Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department
Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department
Ishii was trained as a microbiologist, with a fascination for epidemics. He would be given command of a unit under the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department designated Unit 731. The scope of assigned tasks was broad, and officers inside the unit conducted a large variety of experiments under the guise of learning more on how humans respond to infections, gasses, and cold injuries.
Human Experimentation
Local Chinese civilians and Koreans were subjected to a number of experiments that were unquestionably torture12. Civilians were deliberately exposed to freezing temperatures, sometimes even submerged in ice water until death to study how the body shuts down in subzero temperatures. Men, women and children were sealed into chambers where nerve agents and poisonous gasses pumped in.
Japan viewed the local inhabitants and imported Koreans as human lab rats. This view allowed for horrific experimentation and torture most other countries would not allow.
Biological Weapons
The flagship program of Unit 731 was its biological weapons section, as Ishii had a particular fascination with the use of epidemics to wage war.
Mainly focusing on fleas as a vector of Yersinia pestis, early tests involved dropping oriental rat fleas containing the bacteria on nearby Manchurian settlements.
These tests would infect thousands of local residents, and provide the basis for future implementation in unoccupied china
Research Goals
These experiments were supposedly conducted in the name of scientific discovery and the testing of experimental cures.
Imperial Japan was searching for vaccines to make soldiers immune to future biological warfare, ways to defend against chemical warfare, and cures for gangrene
Weapon Deployment
Biological Bombs
Initial tests on Manchurian settlements proved the effectiveness of the concept of using fleas as a vector of transmitting plague to civilian populations. Changing the distribution method to ceramic bombs that had been previously tested without the use of fleas in Kaimingje13, and switching the flea species to Pulex irritans allowed for better aircraft delivery and transmission to humans.
Large scale breeding operations began, with millions of human fleas bred being fed plague infected rats. These fleas were then dropped in the Chinese countryside behind enemy lines. Each ceramic bomb contained nearly 30,000 infected fleas2. Casualty numbers and distribution of infection are unknown today, and estimates are heavily politicized. Untold thousands were infected, given the success of the Manchurian tests, largely from the civilian population, in an effort to weaken morale and The Chinese United Front's capability to resist invasion.
Clandestine Operations
There are reports that specialists from Unit 731 infiltrated behind enemy lines in China, infecting water sources with cholera, and spreading biological agents to weaken Chinese resistance14.
Planned Use
Plans were drafted to attack the United States, specifically Los Angeles with a similar method of using Pulex irrians carrying Yersinia pestis traveling on long range balloons. Attacks using weather balloons proved to be largely ineffective (Although one did kill 6 civilians in rural Southern Oregon, the intended goal was large wildfires in the Pacific Northwest) and plans shifted to using submarine launched aircraft to attack the West coast15.
Burial teams in Kaimingje in the aftermath of Imperial Japan's biological attack
Memorial to those who were killed from long range balloon attacks in Bly, Oregon
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