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Unit 731 was a secret military medical unit of the
Imperial Japanese Army that researched
biological warfare and other topics through
human experimentation during the
Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and
World War II era. The unit was disguised as a water purification unit.
It was based in
Pingfan, near the city of
Harbin in northeastern
China, the region which was sometimes referred to as
Manchuria or
Manchukuo.
Formation
In 1932, Ishii and his men built the Zhoghma Fortress, a prison on the
outskirts of Harbin. In 1935 a jailbreak forced Ishii to shut down Zhoghma
Fortress. Ishii moved closer to Harbin at Pingfang to set up a new
facility.
Activities
-
vivisections
-
grenade tests using humans at various distances and positions
- test subjects were gathered from the surrounding Chinese population
and were sometimes known as "logs"
-
frostbite experiments
Members
- Lieutenant-General
Ishii Shiro
- Lieutenant Colonel
Ryoichi Naito
- Dr
Masaji Kitano
-
Yoshio Shinozuka
Facilities
The 731 complex covers six square kilometers and consists of more than
150 buildings. The facilities were very well designed making it hard to
destroy them. Some of 731's satellite facilities still remain and are open
to
tourists.
Disbanding
Ishii wanted to use biological weapons in the Pacific conflict since
May 1944, but his attempts were repeatedly foiled by poor planning, and
Allied intervention. When it was clear that the war would soon end, Ishii
destroyed the facilities, and told his men "to take the secret to the
grave."
End of World War II
The
United States believed that the research data was valuable because the
US and its allies would never conduct this type of
human experimentation. Also, the US did not want any other nation,
particularly
Communist
Russia, to acquire data on
biological weapons. Therefore, in exchange for the data, the United
States did not charge the officers of Unit 731 with
war crimes.
Many former members of Unit 731 have become part of the Japanese
medical establishment. Dr
Masaji Kitano led Japan's largest
pharmaceutical company, the
Green Cross. Others have headed medical schools or worked for the
Japanese health ministry.
Legal action
In
1997, 180 Chinese, either victims or the family of victims of Unit
731, sued the Japanese government for a full
disclosure,
apology and
compensation.
In August
2002, the
Tokyo District Court acknowledged the existence of Unit 731 and its
biological warfare activities, but ruled that all compensation issues were
settled by the
Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the
People's Republic of China of September 29,
1972.
Present day
Unit 731 activities are
denied by
right-wing
nationalist
Japanese historians, who say they are fabrications by Chinese
propaganda. References to Unit 731 are omitted from many Japanese
history textbooks. Some see this as evidence that, in modern Japan,
revisionist history is part of the
mainstream. Japan is at fault for refusing to accept responsibility
for the crimes of its past. Despite this it should be remembered that
Japan at the start of the 21st Century is a stable democracy and, in other
respects fairly liberal.
Documents
In
2000, the
United States Congress passed the
Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act to
declassify most
classified US Government records about war criminals and
crimes committed by the Japanese during
World War II.
As of 2003, this will be done through the
Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency
Working Group (IWG)
[1].
Cultural depictions
and representations
Chinese movie
Black sun 731 (Man behind the sun) is a somewhat snuff film on the
atrocities committed by the Japanese.
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