UNIT 731
Documentary |
Japanese Invasion of China |
Second Sino-Japanese War | 1937-45 |
WW2
Unit 731 (731部隊
Nana-san-ichi butai,
Chinese: 731部队) was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the
Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (
1937–
1945) and
World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel. Unit 731 was based at the
Pingfang district of
Harbin, the largest city in the
Japanese puppet state of
Manchukuo (now
Northeast China).
It was officially known as the
Epidemic Prevention and
Water Purification Department of the
Kwantung Army (関東軍防疫給水部本部
Kantōgun Bōeki Kyūsuibu Honbu).
Originally set up under the Kempeitai military police of the
Empire of Japan, Unit 731 was taken over and commanded until the end of the war by
General Shiro Ishii, an officer in the Kwantung Army. The facility itself was built between 1934 and
1939 and officially adopted the name "Unit 731" in
1941.
Between 3,
000 and 12,000 men, women, and children - from which around 600 every year were provided by the Kempeitai - died during the human experimentation conducted by Unit 731 at the camp based in Pingfang alone, which does not include victims from other medical experimentation sites.
Almost 70% of the victims who died in the Pingfang camp were Chinese, including both civilian and military.
Close to 30% of the victims were
Russian. Some others were
South East Asians and Pacific Islanders, at the time colonies of the Empire of Japan, and a small number of
Allied prisoners of war.
The unit received generous support from the
Japanese government up to the end of the war in 1945.
Many of the researchers 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 in 1949; most remained under
American Forces occupation. These researchers were not tried for war crimes by the
Americans so that the information and experience gained in bio-weapons could be co-opted into the
U.S. biological warfare program. 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." The immunity deal concluded in 1948.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unit_731
- published: 25 Feb 2015
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