Unit 731 was based in the
Pingfang district of the city of
Harbin in the
puppet state of
Manchukuo.
More than ten thousand people,
[1] from which around 600 every year were provided by the
kempeitai,
[2] were subjects of the experimentation conducted by Unit 731. These were both civilian and military of
Chinese,
Korean,
Mongolian, and
Russian origin as well as some
Japanese criminals from Japanese mainlands. Some American and European
Allied prisoners of war also died at the hands of Unit 731.
[3] In addition, the use of biological weapons researched in Unit 731's bioweapons and chemical weapons programs resulted in tens of thousands of military and civilian deaths in China – possibly as many as 200,000 casualties by some estimates.
[4]
Unit 731 was the headquarters of many subsidiary units used by the
Japanese to research biological warfare; other units included
Unit 516 (
Qiqihar),
Unit 543 (
Hailar),
Unit 773 (Songo unit),
Unit 100 (
Changchun),
Unit Ei 1644 (
Nanjing),
Unit 1855 (
Beijing),
Unit 8604 (
Guangzhou),
Unit 200 (
Manchuria) and
Unit 9420 (
Singapore).
Many of the scientists involved in Unit 731 went on to prominent careers in
post-war politics,
academia,
business, and
medicine. Some were arrested by
Soviet forces and tried at the
Khabarovsk War Crime Trials; others, who surrendered to the Americans, were granted
amnesty in exchange for access to the data collected by them.
[5] On 6 May 1947,
Douglas MacArthur, as
Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces, wrote to Washington that "additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as 'War Crimes' evidence."
[6] The deal was concluded in 1948.
Because of their brutality, Unit 731's actions have now been declared by the
United Nations to have been
crimes against humanity.
Vivisection
- Prisoners of war were subjected to vivisection without anesthesia. [12][10]
- Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Scientists performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. These were conducted while the patients were alive because it was feared that the decomposition process would affect the results.[13][10] The infected and vivisected prisoners included men, women, children, and infants.[14]
- Vivisections were also performed on pregnant women, sometimes impregnated by doctors, and the fetus removed.[15]
- Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss.[10]
- Those limbs that were removed were sometimes re-attached to the opposite sides of the body.[10]
- Some prisoners' limbs were frozen and amputated, while others had limbs frozen then thawed to study the effects of the resultant untreated gangrene and rotting.
- Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines.[10]
- Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.[16][12][10]
In 2007, Doctor Ken Yuasa testified to the
Japan Times that "I was afraid during my first vivisection, but the second time around, it was much easier. By the third time, I was willing to do it." He believes at least 1,000 persons, including surgeons, were involved in vivisections over mainland China.
[17]
[edit] Weapons testing
[edit] Germ warfare attacks
- Prisoners were injected with inoculations of disease, disguised as vaccinations, to study their effects. [10]
- Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 200,000 Chinese civilians.[10]
- Tularemia was tested on Chinese civilians. [18]
- Unit 731 and its affiliated units (Unit 1644, Unit 100, et cetera) were actively involved not only in research and development, but also in experimental deployment of epidemic-creating biowarfare weapons in assaults against the Chinese populace (both civilian and military) throughout World War II. Plague-infested fleas, bred in the laboratories of Unit 731 and Unit 1644, were spread by low-flying airplanes upon Chinese cities, coastal Ningbo in 1940, and Changde, Hunan Province, in 1941. This military aerial spraying killed thousands of people with bubonic plague epidemics. [19]
