Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II

Product Information

Archived copy" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2019-05-28 . Retrieved 2017-10-27. {{ cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title ( link)

Emanuel, Ezekiel; Grady, Christine; Crouch, Robert; Lie, Reidar; Miller, Franklin (2011). The Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics. US: Oxford University Press. p.36. Unit100 also experimented with toxic gas. Phone booth-like tanks were used as portable gas chambers for the prisoners. Some were forced to wear various types of gas masks; others wore military uniforms, and some wore no clothes at all. Thousands of men, women, children, and infants interned at prisoner of war camps were subjected to vivisection, often performed without anesthesia and usually lethal. [28] [29] In a video interview, former Unit731 member Okawa Fukumatsu admitted to having vivisected a pregnant woman. [30] Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Researchers performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. [31] Human dissection experiment room Unit 731: One of the Most Terrifying Secrets of the 20th Century". Archived from the original on March 8, 2017 . Retrieved November 8, 2015. Also in 1981, the first direct testimony of human vivisection in China was given by Ken Yuasa. Since then, much more in depth testimony has been given in Japan. The 2001 documentary Japanese Devils largely consists of interviews with fourteen Unit731 staff members taken prisoner by China and later released. [122] Significance in postwar research on bio-warfare and medicineSome of the tests have been described as "psychopathically sadistic, with no conceivable military application." For example, one experiment documented the time it took for three-day-old babies to freeze to death. [60] [61] ReGenesis episode "Let it burn" (2007). Outbreaks of anthrax and glanders are traced to World WarII Japan. The clash saw the first field operation of Japan’s biological warfare unit; it occurred in a desert region where water was scarce. To disable their Russian foes, the Japanese dumped large quantities of intestinal typhoid bacteria into the river.

Setting Sun" story from Hellblazer #142 by DC Comics, written by Warren Ellis and illustrated by Javier Pulido, features a fictitious character who used to be a doctor in Unit731 during the war and conducted experiments on humans. 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. [123] Monchinski, Tony (2008). Critical Pedagogy and the Everyday Classroom. Volumen 3 de Explorations of Educational Purpose. Springer, p. 57. ISBN 1402084625Self Determination by Imperial Japanese Doctors". www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp. Archived from the original on 2019-05-31 . Retrieved 2019-05-31. The Tokyo District Court’s ruling, coming on August 28, 2002, accepted that Unit 731 had waged germ warfare in China and caused harm to residents but dismissed the Chinese plaintiffs’ claim for compensation. Nevertheless, it was the first time a Japanese court admitted that the Imperial Army had used biological weapons during its war with China from 1932-1945. The Grimnoire Series, an alternative-history series of novels by Larry Correia, has Unit731 conducting brutal magical experiments on prisoners of the Japanese Imperium.

In 1997, international lawyer Kōnen 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. All levels of the Japanese court system found the suit baseless. No findings of fact were made about the existence of human experimentation, but the courts' ruling was that reparations are determined by international treaties, not national courts. [ citation needed] Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: ‘What would happen if we did such and such?’ What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play." Less well known are the experiments that Japan performed on adult male Chinese prisoners of war and political prisoners, as well as women and children. The captives were injected with diseases such as cholera and gonorrhea, or chained to stakes while aircraft dropped plague bombs. Croddy, Eric; Wirtz, James (2005). Weapons of Mass Destruction: Chemical and biological weapons. ABC-CLIO. ISBN 978-1851094905. Biohazard: Unit 731 and the American Cover-Up" (PDF). University of Michigan–Flint. p.5. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-07-31 . Retrieved 2019-05-31.

Division1: research on bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, typhoid, and tuberculosis using live human subjects; for this purpose, a prison was constructed to contain around three to four hundred people The whole terrible saga has been retold in a new book, Unit 731: Laboratory of the Devil, Auschwitz of the East by Yan-Jun Yang and Yue-Him Tam. Their aim was to raise the profile of the injustice in the West so that nations will remember "to do unto others as they would have others do unto them." One can only hope that the perpetrators, who escaped prosecution as war criminals, achieved something positive in their postwar careers because the victims are still crying out for justice.

Vivisection was a new experience for the doctors of Japan,” Gold writes. “One former unit member explained that ‘the results of the effects of infection cannot be obtained accurately once the person dies because putrefactive bacteria set in. Putrefactive bacteria are stronger than plague germs. So, for obtaining accurate results, it is important whether the subject is alive or not.’” Under the auspices of weapons development and intentional infection of diseases, prisoners were injected with various biological agents including plague, typhus, cholera, anthrax, and syphilis. Kathleen Woods Masalski (November 2001). "Examining the Japanese History Textbook Controversies". Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education. Archived from the original on 2018-01-14 . Retrieved 2012-07-30. Japan’s Kempeitai, the military police arm of the IJA from 1881 to 1945, was tasked with these kidnappings. The Kempeitai was less a conventional military police body than a secret police force akin to the Gestapo. Headed in Manchuria by Hideki Tojo, from 1935 to 1937, the Kempeitai’s cruelty was notorious in occupied territories. (See WWII Quarterly, Fall 2011). After the war, the U.S. Army estimated it numbered 36,000 regular members.

Infection of venereal disease by injection was abandoned, and the researchers started forcing the prisoners into sexual acts with each other. Four or five unit members, dressed in white laboratory clothing completely covering the body with only eyes and mouth visible, rest covered, handled the tests. A male and female, one infected with syphilis, would be brought together in a cell and forced into sex with each other. It was made clear that anyone resisting would be shot. [70] And You Will Beg for Our Secrets" (2016), from the Anaal Nathrakh album The Whole of the Law, refers to Unit731's activities and the US amnesty given in exchange for information resulting from the experiments carried out. RARE) Yoshimura Hisato (excerpt of a telephone interview conducted by Mainichi Shimbun)". Vimeo. Archived from the original on 2021-10-07 . Retrieved 2021-10-07.