Unit 731: Japan's Biochemical Warfare

Source: Wikipedia: Unit 731

Brief Explanation of Unit 731

Unit 731 was a secret biochemical warfare unit run by Ishii Shiro during World War II. The exact number of experiments is unknown, it ranges from a couple thousand to hundreds of thousands. Much is still unknown about the unit's exact experiments but the general idea has become clear over the years since the end of the war in 1945.

Tamura Yoshio Statement

"Subjects had to be dissected before death for our purposes because with time bacteria would make the body rot."

Source: Chapter 16 Japanese Biomedical Experimentation During the World-War-II Era

Shinozuka Yoshio Statement

"At the beginning he looked intelligent and had pale skin; at the terminal stage [of an experiment on plague] he looked different and his skin turned black."

Source: Chapter 16 Japanese Biomedical Experimentation During the World-War-II Era

Ishii Shiro

As the leader of Unit 731, Ishii Shiro was the architect of Japan's biochemical warfare programs. Ishii would later become known for persuading the emperor and the Japanese army to begin using Biochemical Warfare products and for securing a 15-year sponsorship for studies involving forced human experimentation subjects.

Ishii was described as brilliant, erratic, charismatic, flamboyant, mercurial, and an excellent advocate for the causes in which he sincerely believed. They claimed he was ultranationalistic and wished to strengthen his nation's position of authority in Asia.

Ishii belonged to several obscure organizations with influence over the armed forces. When he made the decision that biochemical warfare would be the weapon of the future, Koizumi Chikahiko, a former minister of health and former Army Surgeon General, agreed to support his idea and assist him in obtaining funding from the army to begin his research. Despite his skepticism and perception of Ishii as odd, Koizumi claimed that the man was skilled in his field. Koizumi played a key role in Ishii's appointment as professor of immunology at the Tokyo Army Medical College. General Nagata Tetsuzan, another supporter of Ishii and in 1934 the Army's Chief of the Military Affairs Bureau, aided by sparing Ishii from one of his numerous run-ins with the law. These are just two of the sponsors who were working behind the scenes to support Ishii.

After that, Ishii received regular promotions every three years until he attained the rank of Lieutenant General. However, Ishii began performing covert, forced experiments on lab participants while assuming the role of the professor. These are said to have begun as early as the 1930s. However, he needed a quiet area to carry out his further experiments because he wanted to do so out of the way of curious bystanders. As a result, Unit 731 and its lab, the Ping Fan Research Facility, were established.

Dr. Iwasa Ken Statement

"I did it [performed vivisections] because I thought I was serving the Emperor. At first I felt very bad, but after a few operations I got used to it. What is scary, is that I don’t get nightmares"

Source: Chapter 16 Japanese Biomedical Experimentation During the World-War-II Era

Creation of Unit 731

The help of Emperor Hirohito was very helpful to Ishii's Biochemical Warfare unit. On August 1, 1963, the Anti-Epidemic Water Supply and Purification Bureau was established. They still had to keep up appearances while conducting their experiments on humans, which required them to perform actual water purification tasks.

Ishii combined this unit with the original Biochemical Warfare Unit, the Togo Unit, and up-and-coming young researchers. The name of the newly formed combined unit was the Ishii unit, but to maintain its secrecy, it was later changed to Unit 731.

Caption: “1939 group photograph of Unit 731’s leading scientists, taken at a banquet in Harbin.”

Photograph (including caption) of display at the Ping Fan Museum, Harbin, Manchuria, China from the collection of Sheldon Harris.

Source: Chapter 16 Japanese Biomedical Experimentation During the World-War-II Era

Ping Fan Research Facility

Thanks to additional funding, equipment, and knowledgeable researchers, Ishii was able to improve his biochemical weapons and keep developing them. A land parcel in Harbin, China, 24 kilometres south of the city's center, was given to him by upper-level officials in the army. The large tract of land was called Ping Fan which was roughly 6 square kilometres in size. The research facility's construction, which started in 1936 and included 150 buildings, was finished in 1939. The research facility was known by academics as the Ping Fan Biochemical Warfare "death factory". In its field of study, the facility was the most advanced one that was at the time.

The complex included two prisons, three crematoriums, a sizable refrigerator used to study frostbite, a stable for horses and other large animals, buildings made to house thousands of small research animals (basically lab rats), and more. In one of the prisons, only men were housed; in the other, women, children, and men were all housed.

In the complex, there were also barracks for the soldiers stationed at the facility and schools for the children of civilians and military personnel. There was a huge administrative building, a library, provisions for recreational activities, and two brothels. Several 3-meter-high brick fences, a moat, and a network of electric and barbed wire fences and barriers surrounded the Ping Fan research facility.

Source: Chapter 16 Japanese Biomedical Experimentation During the World-War-II Era

Without a security pass issued by an Army official, nobody—not even citizens of Japan—could enter Ping Fan. The locals in the nearby villages were told that the Japanese were constructing a lumber mill. For this reason, the Japanese researchers called the people who participated in involuntary experiments "logs". The "logs" were taken to the "lumber mill" or laboratories where they were examined and tested for "impurities," dissected, or autopsied, and then "burned as firewood," or sent to the crematorium to be burned to dispose of the dismembered body.

"The logs [human research subjects] were there for experimental purposes. There was no guilt associated with the process. I take pride in having taken part in this work. I have no regrets. It was war"

Source: Chapter 16 Japanese Biomedical Experimentation During the World-War-II Era

Anonymous Physician Statement

Source: Unit 731: Japan discloses details of notorious chemical warfare division

Amputating limbs, performing invasive surgery on living things to remove and study organs, using people as living bacteria, and infesting populated areas with disease-carrying fleas were a few of the experiments. Typically, typhus or cholera were the diseases used. No anesthesia was used in any of the experiments, so the subjects had to go through every aspect of their last moments.

It is estimated that between 200,000 and 580,000 people—mostly Chinese, but also Russian and American prisoners of war—were killed during the facility's operational period as a result of these dreadful and cruel experiments. Hitler's Nazi Germany was the only nation to use humans as experimental subjects in such extensive, cruel, and pseudo-scientific studies.

First-Hand Account of Yoshio Shinozuka

*This is paraphrased as the original account was long*

The Chinese prisoners on whom the vivisections were performed on were known as logs. Shinozuka’s job was to wash the prisoners with a hose and scrub brush before the experiments all so known as operations began. The surgeons then would check for a heartbeat before starting. “We said we have chopped one log, two logs,” recalled Shinozuka. He was involved in five experiments while at the facility.

Yoshio Shinozuka said, “ "I was a member of unit 731 and I have done what no human being should ever do”. The unit, he said, "cruelly murdered human beings, first by caging them up and then by killing them".

Shinozuka admitted that he was a part of war crimes while working in the Unit 731 facility in China.

This account came out during a class action lawsuit comprised of 180 Chinese families who are suing the Japanese government. They claim to have had family members who were killed by Unit 731. Many of these cases have been put forward but many cases like this have been created before and failed.

Source: Japanese soldier admits Chinese used in experiments

The End of the War

Ishii was in charge of a large army of soldiers, a fleet of aircraft, and thousands of medical and scientific workers at his height of power. Ishii presided over his own tiny Biochemical Warfare empire. Ishii forbade any of his researchers from discussing their work as the war came to an end in 1945, and he also ordered the destruction of the Ping Fan research facility.

There wasn't much information available about Japan's biochemical warfare projects when the United States learned about this covert project. Even though the public wanted the unit officials to be held accountable, the US government granted them immunity from prosecution for their war crimes in exchange for their research. The United States only disclosed a very small amount of information regarding the study and data gathered, even after the war. It is believed that they wanted to keep the research for their use and future reference.

Works Cited

Harris , S. H. (p.h.d.). Chapter 16 Japanese Biomedical Experimentation During the World-War-II Era.

If you think Hiroshima was monstrous, you've forgotten the monsters it stopped. (2020, August 16). Sunday Times [London, England], 16. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A632616020/AONE?u=ko_k12hs_d68&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=fc59b7b0

Japanese soldier admits Chinese used in experiments. (2002, August 1). Age [Melbourne, Australia], 11. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A286813994/AONE?u=ko_k12hs_d68&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=56e37084

McCurry, J. (2018, April 17). Unit 731: Japan discloses details of notorious chemical warfare division. The Guardian. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2018/apr/17/japan-unit-731-imperial-army-second-world-war

Unit 731 Complex. (n.d.-b). Wikipedia. Retrieved July 3, 2023, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731.

Zhao, Y., & Hoge, J. D. (2006). Countering textbook distortion: war atrocities in Asia, 1937-1945. Social Education, 70(7), 424+. https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A155400705/AONE?u=ko_k12hs_d68&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=3b0414aa

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