japanese unit 731 experimentsjapanese unit 731 experiments

There is at least one recorded instance of "friendly" social interaction between prisoners and Unit731 staff. 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. The frostbitten hands of a Chinese person who was taken outside in winter by Unit 731 personnel for an experiment on how best to treat frostbite. 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. Although publicly silent on the issue at the Tokyo Trials, the Soviet Union pursued the case and prosecuted 12 top military leaders and scientists from Unit731 and its affiliated biological-war prisons Unit1644 in Nanjing and Unit100 in Changchun in the Khabarovsk war crimes trials. The two prisoners told Ishibashi that they had not seen their faces in a mirror since being captured and begged him to get one. Five subjects were forced to drink a solution of yperite and lewisite gas in water, with or without decontamination. World War II devastated the lives of more than 100 million people around the world. At least 12 large-scale bioweapon field trials were carried out, and at least 11 Chinese cities attacked with biological agents. First, the Imperial Army of Japan wanted to. 13 Apr 2023 06:39:48 Two prisons are hidden in the center of the main building. Unit member Naeo Ikeda wrote: In my experience, when A type blood 100 cc was transfused to an O type subject, whose pulse was 87 per minute and temperature was 35.4 degrees C, 30 minutes later the temperature rose to 38.6 degrees with slight trepidation. Low morale. So he and another unit member took the keys to the cells and opened one that housed a Chinese woman. The author reveals distressing evidence of Unit 731 experiments involving US prisoners and the use of British as control groups in Northern China, Hainau Island, New Guinea and in Japan. A report authored by unknown researcher in the Kamo Unit (Unit731) describes a large human experiment of yperite gas (mustard gas) on 710September 1940. Most or all Units had branch offices, which were also often referred to as "Units". In World War II, Japan created a top-secret project named Unit 731.Officially called the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army, Unit 731 carried out human experiments on unwilling subjects. November 1940. [29], According to A. S. Wells, the majority of victims were Chinese,[31] with a lesser percentage being Russian, Mongolian, and Korean. . [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. To study the effects of untreated venereal diseases, male and female prisoners were deliberately infected with syphilis and gonorrhea, then studied. The complex contained various factories. Unit731 and the other units of the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department operated biological weapon production, testing, deployment, and storage facilities. [19], A special project, codenamed Maruta, used human beings for experiments. Most Japanese civilian scientists before their time at Unit 731 had never used science in an unethical and malicious way. Researchers found the most virulent strains of disease by infecting prisoners, usually by injecting them with "vaccines" or feeding them contaminated food, and killing those prisoners who recovered quickly from their illnesses. They also carried out biological wars by contaminating water and farmlands with disease-carrying germs. [68], In 2002, Changde, China, site of the plague flea bombing, held an "International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare", which estimated that the number of people slaughtered by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and other human experiments was around 580,000. [35]:xii,173 The American historian Sheldon H. Harris states that over 200,000 died. 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]. 10-14 Unit 731 performed medical experiments, such as human vivisections, on detained Chinese, Koreans, Mongolians, Russians and Americans, 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. [94], Despite the prison's status as a highly secure building, at least one unsuccessful escape attempt did occur. 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. To breed the most lethal strains possible, doctors monitored patients for rapid onset of symptoms and quick progression. The prisoners brought to Zhongma included common criminals, captured bandits, anti-Japanese partisans, as well as political prisoners and people rounded up on trumped up charges by the Kempeitai. 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. Since then, much more in depth testimony has been given in Japan. It was made clear that anyone resisting would be shot. Unit 731 was a biological warfare research division of the Imperial Japanese Army, which was founded in 1936. 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. Japanese discussions of Unit731's activity began in the 1950s, after the end of the American occupation of Japan. 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. One member of Unit 731 later recalled that very sick and unresisting captives would be laid out on the slab so a line could be inserted into their carotid artery. One Russian shouted to the members of Unit731, demanding to be shot rather than used as an experimental object. [93] The inner-prison was a highly secured building complete with cast iron doors. [3]:60,84,124,310, A medical school and research facility belonging to Unit731 operated in the Shinjuku District of Tokyo during World WarII. To ensure effective transmission of the disease, syphilitic male victims were ordered to rape both female and male fellow captives, who would then be monitored to observe the onset of the disease. For example, female captives of childbearing age were sometimes forcibly impregnated so that weapon and trauma experiments could be done on them. It routinely conducted tests on people who were dehumanized and internally referred to as "logs". 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. This took place in August1946 and was instigated by David Sutton, assistant to the Chinese prosecutor. "Terrorism and Weapons of the Apocalypse". "[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. A prisoner would be taken from his cell. Prisoners were usually received into Unit731 at night in motor vehicles painted black with a ventilation hole but no windows. When most of the blood had been siphoned off and the heart was too weak to pump anymore, an officer in leather boots climbed onto the table and jumped on the victims chest with enough force to crush the ribcage, whereupon another dollop of blood would spurt into the container. 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. 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. This Russian was shot to death. The Japanese wanted to avoid prosecution under the Soviet legal system, so, the morning after he made his threat, Sanders received a manuscript describing Japan's involvement in biological warfare. Skin of the face still weeping. [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. Nishiyama reportedly intended to publish the list online to encourage further study into the unit.[98]. This team wore white overall suits, army hats, rubber boots, and pistols strapped to their sides.[86]. 431968pp. 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. 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. Two Russian male prisoners were in a cell with handcuffs on, one of them lay flat on the floor pretending to be sick. As the last witnesses to this history grow old and die, its possible that the matter will never be addressed again. From 1948 to 1958, less than five percent of the documents were transferred onto microfilm and stored in the US National Archives before they were shipped back to Japan.[118]. 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. Potential witnesses, such as the 300 remaining prisoners, were either gassed or fed poison while the 600 Chinese and Manchurian laborers were shot. Detachments included Unit 1855 in Beijing, Unit Ei 1644 in Nanjing, Unit 8604 in Guangzhou, and later Unit 9420 in Singapore. Guards would hold him while another guard would smash the victim's head open with an ax. [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. Ishii had wanted to use biological weapons in the Pacific War since May1944, but his attempts were repeatedly snubbed. It is suspected that the children of female prisoners were killed after birth or aborted.[68]. Its records were mostly burned, destroying any useful information the team had managed to generate in 13 years of research. In response, in February2011 the Ministry of Health began to excavate the site. The history of Imperial Japan's human experiments was one in which Ishii and Unit 731 was the principal actor, but Unit 731 operated in a much larger context. But then finally he stopped. 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. Ishii ordered every member of the group to disappear and "take the secret to the grave". [86] No one could enter without special permits and an ID pass with a photograph, and the entry/exit times were recorded. They performed many experiments on live and dead prisoners of war that were crimes against humanity - including vivisection, intentional infection of individuals with diseases such as the plague and syphilis, and forced rape and pregnancy for further use in experimentation. He painfully cried and breathed with difficulty. 431968pp. One thing is for certainno prisoner, whether man, woman, or child, got out alive. ][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. Epidemics broke out shortly after, to the elation of many researchers, who concluded that paratyphoid fever was "the most effective" of the pathogens. But when I picked up the scalpel, that's when he began screaming. 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. 1341361982pp. They also were exposed to as much as 1,800rounds of yperite gas. Date unspecified. Twenty subjects were divided into three groups and placed in combat emplacements, trenches, gazebos, and observatories. Prisoners were also repeatedly subjected to rape by guards. Insisting on anonymity, the former Japanese medical assistant recounted his first experience in dissecting a live human being, who had been deliberately infected with the plague, for the purpose of developing "plague bombs" for war. I sanitised his whole body with disinfectant. 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. In one of many records, after a Japanese surgeon fetched a Filipino native from the population and performed vivisection on him, he then removed his appendix and sewed him back up. [4] Japanese researchers performed tests on prisoners with bubonic plague, cholera, smallpox, botulism, and other diseases. Sanders' duty was to investigate Japanese biological warfare activity. [11] The majority of research subjects were Chinese, but many were of different nationalities.[1]. His reference to it at the trial is believed to have been accidental. [93] The "special team" worked in these two inner-prison buildings. 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. An attack on Changde in 1941 reportedly led to approximately 10,000 biological casualties and 1,700 deaths among ill-prepared Japanese troops, in most cases due to cholera. Parts of organs, such as the brain, lungs, and liver, were removed from others. To determine the best course of treatment for varying degrees of shrapnel wounds sustained on the field by Japanese Soldiers, Chinese prisoners were exposed to direct bomb blasts. ; 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. Richard Stockton is a freelance science and technology writer from Sacramento, California. 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. The Truth of Unit 731: Elite medical students and human experiments (2017). The main site of Japan's experiments into biological warfare was the prisoner of war camp known as Unit 731 located in Pingfan, Manchuria, where Chinese inmates were subjected to gruesome experiments aimed at testing the limits of the human body and the effectiveness of biological and chemical agents. Female prisoners were forced to become pregnant for use in experiments. Flamethrowers were tested on humans. 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. After Sud's body was carefully checked [by the surgeon], I handed a scalpel to [the surgeon] who, reversely gripping the scalpel, touched Sud's stomach skin and sliced downward. The first focused on experimenting with bacteriological diseases, including the bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, typhoid, and tuberculosis. A glass-walled chamber about three meters square [97sqft] and two meters [6.6ft] high was used. However, Unit 731 was likely the largest biological-warfare production facility in world history. More than ten doctors and technicians were present. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. Some were also vivisected. After this look at Unit 731, read up on some more of the worst war crimes ever committed as well as other Japanese war crimes from the World War II era. [6], One graduate of Unit 1644, Masami Kitaoka, continued to perform experiments on unwilling Japanese subjects from 1947 to 1956. It was surgery for most, autopsies for the rest. A third group was clothed in summer military uniform, three with masks and two without masks, and were exposed to as much as 4,800rounds. But that didn't stop a Japanese army medical officer named Shiro . One of Ishii's main supporters inside the army was Colonel Chikahiko Koizumi, who later served as Japan's Health Minister from 1941 to 1945. He gave up the idea, left and locked the door, then later went on to his experimental work. [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. David C. Rapoport. Ultimately, inadequate scientific and engineering foundations limited the effectiveness of the Japanese program. To name a few, prisoners were exposed to tetrodotoxin (pufferfish or fugu venom), heroin, Korean bindweed, bactal, and castor-oil seeds (ricin). Covered with millet-seed-size to bean-size blisters. He later testified about the playfulness of the experimenters:[24], Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. He was about to rape her anyway, then he saw that her sex organ was festering, with pus oozing to the surface. The ministry alleged that no academic research supported the claim. [6] The United States covered up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. Eyelids and conjunctivae hyperemic and edematous. [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. None at all. [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. Unit 731 was set up in 1938 in Japanese-occupied China with the aim of developing biological weapons. 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. and died with this last word. [20] In a further parallel, the corpses of "sacrificed" subjects were disposed of by incineration. [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. After Japan occupied Manchuria in 1931, Ishii Shiro created Unit 731 and began testing biological weapons on unwilling human test subjects. Official silence during the American occupation of Japan, Post-occupation Japanese media coverage and debate, Significance in postwar research on bio-warfare and medicine, Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II (Pacific Theater). The 2001 documentary Japanese Devils largely consists of interviews with fourteen Unit731 staff members taken prisoner by China and later released. [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. [6] American occupation authorities monitored the activities of former unit members, including reading and censoring their mail. Feels sick. Associated Press/LIFE via Wikimedia CommonsA Japanese soldier uses a Chinese mans body for bayonet practice near Tianjin, China. To determine effectiveness, Unit 731 herded captives together on a firing range and blasted them from varying ranges by multiple Japanese weapons, such as the Nambu 8mm pistol, bolt-action rifles, machine guns, and grenades. The average life expectancy of a prisoner once they had entered the Unit was two months. 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. Their deteriorating health was recorded. [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. ", Prisoners were injected with diseases, disguised as vaccinations,[25] to study their effects. But then finally he stopped. A male and female, one infected with syphilis, would be brought together in a cell and forced into sex with each other. Abdominal pain. [The subjects] suffered such agony they were digging their nails into each other's flesh". The two Russians opened their handcuffs, took the keys, and opened some other cells while yelling. She had several fingers missing and her bones were black, with gangrene set in. [88] One of the prisons housed women and children (Building8), while the other prison housed men (Building7). At that time we understood in our hearts that justice was not on our side". [34][35]:xii,173. Its head was Lieutenant Shiro Ishii. 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. Another group was clothed in summer military uniform and shoes; three had masks and another three had no mask. the plan of Unit 731 was to use kamikaze pilots to infest San Diego, California, with the plague. [69][70] In addition to Chinese casualties, 1,700 Japanese troops in Zhejiang during Zhejiang-Jiangxi campaign were killed by their own biological weapons while attempting to unleash the biological agent, indicating serious issues with distribution. The program received generous support from the Japanese government until the end of the war in 1945. The subject was not pursued further by Sutton, who was probably unaware of Unit731's activities. Sud shouted "brute!" Hisato then tried different methods for rapid rewarming of the frozen appendage. Takashi Tsuchiya. None of the Japanese scientists in Unit 731 was ever punished. One of the most common experiments at Unit 731 was the vivisection of diseased bodies. Xinhua via Getty ImagesUnit 731 researchers conduct bacteriological experiments with captive child subjects in Nongan County of northeast Chinas Jilin Province. Unit 731 started out as a research unit, investigating the effects of disease and injury on the fighting ability of an armed force. While he was there, he watched footage of human experiments and executions from Unit731. [92] Former Unit731 Youth Corps member Yoshio Shinozuka testified that the windows in these prison doors were so small that it was difficult to see in. Xinhua via Getty ImagesUnit 731 personnel conduct a bacteriological trial upon a test subject in Nongan County of northeast Chinas Jilin Province. Unit731 was divided into eight divisions: Unit731 had other units underneath it in the chain of command; there were several other units under the auspice of Japan's biological weapons programs. [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. It was around this time that Unit 731 began referring to confined research subjects as logs, or Maruta in Japanese. 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. According to one eyewitness account, the limbs made a sound like a plank of wood when struck with a cane. Unit 731 - Japans Secret Human Experiments Disturban History 236K subscribers Subscribe 22K 702K views 1 year ago Formed in response to western powers developing their own chemical and. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The totality of Unit 731s research was in support of their larger mission, which by 1939 was to develop horrific weapons of mass destruction for use against the Chinese population, and presumably American and Soviet forces, if the time ever came. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. One of the most heinous types of experiments conducted in Unit 731 was . [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. On October 4, 1940, Japanese bombers deployed these casings, each loaded with 30,000 fleas that had each sucked blood from a dying prisoner, over the Chinese village of Quzhou. government. [42] The plan was scheduled to launch on 22September 1945, but Japan surrendered five weeks earlier.[43][44][45]. Unit731 also tested chemical weapons on prisoners in field conditions. However, he rejected victims' compensation claims on the grounds that they had already been settled by international peace treaties. Xinhua via Getty ImagesJapanese personnel in protective suits carry a stretcher through Yiwu, China during Unit 731s germ warfare tests. Bayonets, swords, and knives were also studied in this way, though the victims were usually bound for these tests. The unit conducted cruel and inhumane . [122], Japanese Biological Warfare operations were by far the largest during WWII, and "possibly with more people and resources than the BW producing nations of France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and the Soviet Union combined, between the world wars. Inside Unit 731, Japans Disturbing Human Experiments Program During World War II. 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. Xinhua via Getty ImagesA Unit 731 doctor operates on a patient that is part of a bacteriological experiment. However, the amount of effort devoted to BW was not matched by its results. Flamethrowers were tested on people. Unit 731 was split into eight divisions. And as the concept of consent went out the window, so did the restraint of the researchers. Weeping redness of the skin of the upper part of the body. 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[ 4 ] Japanese researchers performed tests on people who were dehumanized and internally referred to as Units! Warfare research division of the American historian Sheldon H. Harris states that 200,000! Of more than 100 million people around the world named Shiro also were exposed as. Referred to as `` Units '' largest biological-warfare production facility in world history several fingers missing and her bones black. Night in motor vehicles painted black with a ventilation hole but no windows bones black!

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