Unit 371 and the American Cover-up
Atrocities are no stranger to warfare, and
no nation, even the United States, is not exempt from the stain of war crimes.
World War II witnessed carnage rarely seen before as new technology contributed
to the cruelty and the multitude of victims. Most are familiar with the
millions of victims perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jewish population of
Europe. Still, fewer are familiar with the many victims inflicted by the
Japanese within their conquered territory. Unlike the Holocaust, few are
familiar with the cruelty imposed upon the many victims of Japanese atrocities.
During their occupation of Manchuria, the Japanese maintained a secret
biological warfare unit called Unit 731 that experimented on humans to develop
chemical and biological weapons. Prisoners of the Japanese found themselves the
victims within something akin to a death camp where they were treated as human
lab rats and subjected to experiments with no thought to their humanity.
Besides experiments using germ warfare, many were subjected to experiments
involving human dehydration, starvation, frostbite, air pressure, animal-to-human
blood transfusions, and a host of terrors that treated humans as guinea pigs.
Looking at the thousands of deaths and the immense cruelty foisted upon the
victim, one would assume that the perpetrators behind Unit 731 faced similar
judgment from the Allied powers that Nazi leaders behind the Holocaust faced.
However, that assumption is mistaken. The United States not only never
prosecuted those responsible for the atrocities but provided the guilty
Japanese medical and military authorities pardon and protection in exchange for the exclusive use of
the scientific findings developed within Unit 731. To prevent Japanese research
on biological warfare from falling into Soviet hands, American authorities
protected those responsible for some of the war’s worst atrocities in exchange
for their knowledge. The goal of this paper is to present an outline of the
atrocities of Unit 731 and examine the response of American officials in
shielding Japanese war criminals.
The leader of Unit 731 was Ishii Shiro,
the organizer and primary mover behind the planning and development of
biological research and experiments in Manchuria. Unit 731 was the first of
several units created as an extension of the research lab, the Epidemic
Prevention Research Laboratory, and under the authority of the Japanese Army
Military Medical School in Tokyo. Unit 731 was the most notorious of several
units within Japanese conquered territory that served as field laboratories for
developing biological weaponry.
Dr. Ishii studied medicine at Kyoto Imperial University and received training
as a microbiologist. He spent his career as a medical officer in the Japanese
Army and began researching the impact of biological and chemical warfare used
during World War I. Japan
was one of the signatories of the Geneva Convention of 1925, prohibiting the
use of biological and chemical warfare. As a microbiologist, Ishii reasoned
that the prohibition of biological weapons meant that if these weapons were so
destructive to require constraints, then these weapons must be effective and
worthy of investigation.
He further reasoned that if these weapons were outlawed, then research into
biological warfare could greatly benefit Japan if these weapons became part of
the Japanese arsenal and that biological weapons required no natural resources
that, at the time, were difficult for Japan to acquire.
Ishii paid close attention to the reports of the Geneva Convention and, after
careful reading, became convinced of the possibilities of biological weapons
for the Japanese military.
Ishii climbed quickly to become Japan’s chief
champion for biological research and development. In 1930, Ishii received an
appointment as professor of immunology at the Tokyo Army Medical School and
began lobbying for research on biological warfare. The 1931 Mukden Incident,
after the Japanese army swept into Manchuria from their bases in Korea, allowed
Ishii to expand biological experiments. By 1932, the Japanese conquered all of
Manchuria, and the region became the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo.
Manchukuo opened up an entirely new dimension of germ warfare for Ishii as he
expanded his research facilities into Manchuria to develop new weapons.
The remoteness of Manchuria allowed the researchers to carry out experiments
without interference. Ishii planned experiments using humans very early in the
planning, but the use of live human subjects became too difficult in Japan. The
use of human beings began as early as 1932.
 |
Puppet state of Manchuko & Korea as a Japanese colony
Notice te proximity to the Soviet Union
Map from Wikipedia |
The proximity of Manchuria to the USSR was
a possible motive for the placement of Unit 731 within Manchuria. If war broke
out between Japan and the Soviets, then the use of bacteriological weapons
would be instrumental in a possible invasion of the Russian Far East. Japan’s Kantokuen plan, created by the General
Staff of the Imperial Japanese Army, called for an invasion of the eastern
region of the Soviet Union, taking advantage of Germany’s invasion of the USSR
in June 1941. The Kantokuen plan
included heavy use of chemical and biological weapons with spraying from
aircraft, biological bombs, and importation of biological weapons using
saboteurs. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, all biological and
chemical units received orders to increase production, indicating a need for
readiness in the advent of war with the Soviets.
Ishii received enthusiastic support from
all levels of the Japanese army in Manchuria as the military commanders
remained convinced that war with the Soviet Union was inevitable and that the
Russians were actively engaged in biological weapon research. The assumption of
Soviet research into germ warfare convinced the Japanese of the need for
self-protection. General
Umezu Yoshijiro summarized the Japanese viewpoint during an interrogation in
1945,
Under the
supposition that BW could be employed in modern warfare, the Japanese military made
a considerable study and research in BW in order that it might be able to cope
with it in the event that it were used. I may say that in this connection, I
have received no report on the use of BW by the U.S., Britain, or China. But
neither did I receive reports that this weapon would not be used. Therefore the
Japanese Army had to extend itself to study BW and to obtain knowledge in this
field. As to the Soviet Union… reports were received concerning their
intentions to use BW in the eventuality of war… This was considered one of the
principal motives of the Japanese study in BW.
The
belief in an impending conflict with the Soviets led the military hierarchy to
believe in the necessity of biological research, providing Ishii full authority
to begin experimentation.
Ishii began his work at the Zhong Mafortress in Beiyinhe, just outside Harbin, and then
at Pingfan, thirty-five miles south of Harbin, where a sizeable biological
warfare research and development facility was constructed. Human experiments
began in as soon as construction at the unit in Beiyinhe finished. In 1936, Pingfan
became the headquarters of the Ishii network as Pingfan villagers were forced
from their homes and farms. The Japanese forced all the surrounding villages to
evacuate and left at six hundred Chinese villagers homeless. A large complex with at least seventy-six
structures with administrative buildings, laboratories, civilian dormitories,
military quarters, barns, stables, an autopsy and dissection building, a
laboratory for frostbite experiments, a farm and greenhouses, a prison to house
human test subjects, a power plant, three furnaces to burn bodies, and a
recreational center. Attached to the recreation center was a brothel populated
with “comfort women,” better classified as sex slaves. Also, part of the
complex was an airfield and a special railroad spur. The whole complex totaled
six square kilometers.
In 1936, Ishii’s unit was designated the Epidemic Prevention and Water
Purification Department of the Kuantung Army, and Ishii received the title of
chief of water purification. Ishii previously invented a water filter, and he
used his influence to lobby the military to support his research into
biological experimentation. The research base in Pingfan changed to Unit 731 in
1941.
The unit in Pingfan became the
manufacturing center for bacteriological weaponry, breeding vectors, and bombs
to spread various diseases. The prison kept a number of captives, Chinese,
Manchurians, Koreans, and Russians, for use as experimental subjects. The
Japanese infected, treated and reinjected the prisoners until they died. The
conditions experienced by the victims were comparable to the worst experiences
of those within Nazi concentration camps.
Unit 731 eventually encompassed 3000 personnel, 150 buildings, and the ability
to imprison 600 detainees at a time for experiments. Thousands of human beings
were experimented on and killed at Unit 731 alone. However, Unit 731 became the
center of other units throughout Japanese-occupied territories that conducted
biological experiments on human beings. Units affiliated with Unit 731 became
established within major Chinese cities. With Unit 731 in Pingfan serving as
the hub, other affiliated stations such as Unit 1644 in Nanking, Unit 1855 in
Beijing, and Unit 100 in Changchun spread deadly epidemics within China and
other Asian nations.
With Unit 731, the network of units was often known as the Ishii Network,
indicating the importance of General Ishii as the founder.
Eventually, thousands died from experiments that tortured and treated the
victims as less than human. It is doubtful that the complete number of victims
will ever become known.
However, the totals of the dead exclude those who passed from the epidemics experienced
by the communities around Ping Fam. Plagues regularly broke out each autumn from
1946-1948 and spread throughout the Harbin region. In 1947, a plague epidemic
broke out and impacted much of northeast China, eventually killing more than
30,000 people. With no historical memory of an epidemic of such magnitude
before 1945, many Chinese physicians became convinced that the plague resulted
from thousands of infected animals released by the Japanese.
Large numbers of Chinese people
became victims of experiments conducted at Unit 731. Any Chinese who revolted
against Japanese rule came to be regarded as criminals and arrested and shipped
to Ping fan. The Japanese called the prisoners maruta or logs of wood. Each year, the Japanese military and
Manchurian captured at least six hundred maruta
and sent them to Unit 731 as experimental subjects. Once the maruta entered the unit prison, they
faced untold horror and terror.
The designation as maruta or logs of
wood reflected the racist attitude of the Japanese, who regarded the Chinese as
an inferior race. Tamura Yoshio served as a junior researcher at Unit 731 and
arrived at the facility in 1939. Yoshio arrived at the facility confident in
the superiority of the Japanese people and his superiors emphasized that the
prisoners were communists and criminals deserving no pity. Asked how he viewed
the prisoners and if he had any feelings of pity, Yoshio said,
Well. None at all.
We were like that already. I had gotten to where I lacked pity. After all we
were already implanted with a narrow racism, in the form of a belief in the
superiority of the so-called “Yamato Race.” We disparaged all other races. That
kind of racism. If we didn’t have a feeling of racial superiority, we couldn’t
have done it. People with today’s sensibilities don’t grasp this. That’s why
I’m afraid of the of education. We, ourselves, had to struggle with our
humanity afterwards. It was an agonizing process. There were some who killed
themselves, unable to endure. After the defeat.
Designating the imprisoned Chinese as
criminals also justified the inhumane treatment the prisoners experienced. During
interrogation, Japanese researchers claimed that since the prisoners faced
execution, human experimentation was permissible. During an interrogation of
General Ishii, the interrogator quotes Japanese General Kawashima, who used
this reasoning during his interrogation,
From 150 to 200
criminals were confined in two guard houses, and the number of criminals which
was delivered annually to the unit amounted to 500 to 600, and therefore, while
I was with the unit, approximately 1,000 to 1,200 criminals were received by
the unit. The experiments on them were performed before they were executed.
Should an experimental subject survive, then he was used for some other
experiment. The virulence of cholera, typhoid, typhus, plague was experimented
on these criminals. I, personally, have seen the guardhouses and the condition
within, and I have personally witnessed some of the human experiments which
were conducted at the ANDA Experimental Field. Since I have seen these facts, I
testify as these being the truth.
Estimates
demonstrate that more than three thousand people died from experimentation
using biological and chemical weapons at Unit 731 during the Asia-Pacific War.
However, human experimentation also occurred, beginning in 1932 at the facility
in Beiyinhe, making the estimates of fatalities challenging to determine.
Unit 731 received backing from the
Japanese military hierarchy and continued support from Japanese universities
and medicals, which regularly provided the unit with research personnel and
doctors. Doctors and researchers conducted numerous experiments on human
subjects using various methods for multiple goals. Areas of experimentation
included exposure to cholera, epidemic hemorrhagic fever, plague, and
frostbite. A primary motivation for Unit 731's actions was to discover methods
to protect Japanese troops from illness and disease. Researchers desired to
observe the stages of diseases in humans. Therefore, Japanese researchers
infected their victims with numerous diseases to witness each disease stage. Some
doctors experimented with chloroform and potassium cyanide. In 1946, Shiro
Kasahara confessed to performing experiments with humans with epidemic hemorrhagic fever and admitted “he put them to sleep with chloroform.”
Human
vivisection on infected persons to see the effects on organs was often
performed on victims without the use of anesthesia.
The deliberate infection of a human with a deadly pathogen paints a cruel
picture, but live dissection goes beyond cruelty, yet the practice became
common at the facility in Pingfan. In an interview Tamura Yoshio describes the
process of extracting bacteria from the organs of a living person,
Did
you let the person live to the very last moment and try to extract plague
bacteria?
Yes, that was the
objective. Unless you dissected them quickly, extraneous bacteria would
intrude.
Did
you do it while they were alive?
[He pauses for a
very long time] Yeah. Yes, at the moment when he may or may not still have a
breath of life remaining. If time passed, the effect of the experiment would be
reduced.
During
interrogation and trial by the Soviets Kawashima Kiyoshi, testified to some of
the methods used to investigate diseases,
If a prisoner
survived the inoculation of lethal bacteria, this did not save him from a
repetition of the experiments, which were continued until death from infection
supervened. The infected people were given medical treatment to test various
methods of cure; they were fed normally, and after they had fully recovered,
they were used for the next experiment but infected with another kind of germ.
At any rate, no one ever left this death factory alive.
Possible warfare with the Soviet Union
entailed the requirement that Japanese soldiers experience combat in freezing
weather, and doctors anticipated the need to treat large numbers of soldiers
for frostbite. In an attempt to learn more about the prevention and treatment
of frostbite, the researchers at Unit 731 exposed their prisoners to subzero
weather conditions. During the winter months, prisoners stood outside
barefooted, or their limbs were placed into freezing water until they became
frostbitten. Often, their legs or arms were stricken by a club to assess if
they were frozen. Once frostbitten, the captives' limbs were dipped in water to
determine the best temperature for recovery.
Outside of the winter months, frostbite experiments took place within a special
freezer unit that allowed researchers to observe their subjects through
transparent windows. Men and, on occasion, women faced subzero temperatures
over extended periods of time while under observation. Those that remained
alive were defrosted using a variety of methods with the goal of understanding
the most effective method to treat frostbite Japanese troops.
Many experiments centered upon curiosity.
Prisoners hung upside down for long periods to determine the amount of time it
took to choke to death. Deadly radiation tested on inmates measured lethal
exposure. Animal urine was inserted into human kidneys, and horse blood was
injected into humans to examine if animal blood might substitute for human
blood and to see if horse blood was an incubator for microbes. To study blood
loss, some inmates’ limbs were removed. Other prisoners were boiled alive.
Parts of the liver were removed to examine how much was required to remain
alive. Prisoners were shot in the stomach so surgeons might practice removing
bullets. Other subjects faced the torture of the high-pressure chamber, while
others placed in a centrifuge were spun to death.
The inhumanity of the researchers knew no bounds as they regarded the prisoners
as disposable and inferior.
Ishii also directed Unit 731 to work on
effective methods of disseminating pathogens to measure the result and
determine the impact of an epidemic. Contaminated tools, clothing, utensils
were regularly handed to prisoners to gauge the effectiveness of using ordinary
items in spreading dangerous germs. Prisoners were sometimes given water, milk,
coffee, beer, or sake poisoned with an organism to test its effectiveness at
spreading a disease. Food also became a method for dissemination as inmates
ingested food and fruit infected with pathogens such as typhoid or bubonic
plague. Sweets laced with anthrax were circulated among the general population
outside Pingfan, and in one incident, poisoned candy was distributed to Chinese
children.
Japanese researchers at 731 looked to develop bombs designed to spread deadly bacterium
with investigators using metal and ceramic cylinders, and while the experiments
were mostly unsuccessful, the detonations were used against local populations.
Aerosol dispersion using planes equipped with spray nozzles and canisters
filled with bacteria were scattered over local Chinese in the countryside and
villages. Dr. Qui Mingxuan was nine years old when his
hometown of Quzhou faced an attack by a Japanese airplane in 1940. In 2001, Dr.
Qui recalled the airplane dropping rags, soybeans, and wheat that possibly
carried cholera, typhoid, and anthrax. He remembers an eruption of the plague
breaking out in his community. “My relatives, friends, and classmates have
died. Even the families of the dead were not allowed to see their faces one
last time at their funeral because they died at the isolation hospital.” In a
community where the plague was previously unknown, Japanese bacteriological
weapons killed as many as 50,000 died over a six-year period.
Other deaths resulted from spreading plague-infected fleas and cholera bacilli.
While no completely dependable and well-controlled method for using bombs to
disperse biological weapons was discovered, it’s apparent that continuous
Japanese experiments caused great damage and misery.
One problem the Japanese faced was the
ability to produce enough bacteria and viruses to conduct effective experiments
and have enough storage to conduct an effective biological campaign if needed.
Large areas of Unit 731 were set aside for the large ovens required to incubate
and create enough bacteria. Aerobic bacteria, anthrax, cholera, plague, typhoid,
and other infectious organisms emerged from the ovens every twenty-four to
forty-eight hours. Chief of Division 4 at Unit 731, Kiyoshi Kawashima, assessed
that at peak production, his division produced one ton of cholera bacteria, 500
to 700 kilograms of anthrax bacteria, 300 kilograms of bubonic plague bacteria,
700 to 800 kilograms of typhoid bacteria. The organisms were then collected for
storage for future experimentation or deployment in biological warfare. The
need for germs was so great that the ovens operated around the clock.
The news of the Japanese surrender left
General Ishii in shock, but he quickly moved to cover the evidence of war
crimes. Ishii returned quickly to Pingfan and ordered the destruction of the
facility, any proof of the advancing Soviets, and the deaths of the remaining maruta. Foremost in Ishii’s mind was the
protection of the Emperor. The elimination of 404 prisoners took three days to
complete as the bodies were burned. After the destruction of the complex, the
most important scientists of Unit 731 fled to Japan.
American and British governments became
aware of the Japanese use of chemical and biological weaponry years before both
countries entered into war with Japan. At the outbreak of the Wusung-Shanghai campaign on August 13, 1937, the American and British navies witnessed the use
of poison gas against the Chinese military.
Chinese reports also began to filter out of the Japanese using biological
weapons against Chinese civilians. In 1940, the Chinese ambassador to London
reported,
On at least five
occasions during the first two years the Japanese armed forces have tried to
employ bacteriological warfare in China. They have tried to produce epidemics
of plague in Free China by scattering plague-infected materials with aeroplanes.
In
1943, President Roosevelt issued a statement condemning Japan’s use of
biological and chemical weapons,
Authoritative
reports are reaching this government of the use by Japanese armed forces in
various localities of China of poisonous or noxious gases. I desire to make it
unmistakably clear that if Japan persists in this inhuman form of warfare
against China or against any other of the United Nations such action will be
regarded by this government as though taken against the United States and
retaliation in kind and in full measure will be meted out.
After the surrender of Japan, efforts
began to investigate the degree and scope of Japan’s biological weapon program.
The investigation began soon after General Douglas MacArthur arrived in Tokyo
in September 1945 and continued for three years until the conclusion of the War
Crimes Trial in Tokyo in June 1948.
Arriving with MacArthur during his
triumphal landing in Tokyo was Lieutenant Colonel Murray Sanders, a specialist
in bacteriology from the USArmy’s Chemical Warfare Service, who was the first investigator from the U.S.
biological warfare unit at Camp Detrick in Maryland to visit Japan. In 1944, as
the Allies began to advance westward, intelligence reports began to receive
reports of Japanese biological weaponry. In May 1944, further intelligence exposed
the possibility of more advanced Japanese biological weapons, describing a diagram
of a Japanese Mark 7 experimental bacillus bomb. The possibility of the
Japanese using biological weapons became a real threat as the war neared its
end.
Sanders led the investigation into
biological weapons soon after his arrival in Japan, but Japanese officials
claimed ignorance, with key officials appearing to know nothing about
biological weapon research. Beginning his investigation, Sanders contacted Dr.
Naito Ryoichi, a surgeon fluent in English with a private practice outside
Osaka. Unbeknownst to Sanders, Naito was a former lieutenant colonel in the
medical corps with a direct connection with the Ishii Network, having served as
the director of the germs weapon program in Singapore. Naito insisted that
Japan’s biological weapons program only shielded troops against infectious
diseases and unsanitary conditions within occupied territories. As Sanders
continued to interview doctors and scientists, he was assured by the
interviewees that Japanese research and experimentation were for defensive
purposes. Even when confronted with biological bomb prototypes, Japanese
scientists continued to stick with their stories.
Sanders spent ten weeks in Japan, and after returning to the United States, he
spent two years recovering from tuberculosis. Years later, Sanders after the
arrangement between the Japanese behind biological experimentation and U.S.
officials was completed, he admitted that Naito deceived him,
I pondered about
the issue so often while I lay in bed month after month. In retrospect, the
deal was a mistake. But I didn’t know that human guinea pigs had been used when
I suggested the arrangement and when we learned about the bacillus anthrax
bombs there had still been time to prosecute the Japs at the Tokyo trials.
Japanese
scientists became very adroit in their dealing with American interrogators.
They held their cards close to their chest and realized that their biological
research knowledge provided the Japanese interrogees with potent leverage when
bargaining for their freedom.
Sanders’ replacement was Lt. ColArvo T. Thompson, who also faced frustration in mining relevant information
about biological research from Japanese scientists. Thompson located Ishii and
met with the head of Unit 371 on several occasions, often over a meal. According
to Ishii's daughter Harumi, Thompson pleaded with Ishii to reveal top-secret
data on germ warfare, emphasizing that the "data must not fall into the
hands of the Russians." While presenting Thompson with a demonstration of
water purification and the designs for the mass production of bacteria, Ishii
continued to insist that the cultures existed for the purpose of vaccinations.
Ishii insisted to Thompson that biological weapons were “inhumane” and that
such warfare would “defile the virtue and benevolence of the Emperor.”
The third American investigator to
examine Japanese biological research was Dr. Norman H. Fell. Fell was a
civilian employee of Camp Detrick and, after reviewing the reports of Sanders
and Thompson, remained guarded to look out for dishonesty. Fell met with Dr.
Kan’ichiro Kamai, who had earlier assisted Murray Sanders. When pressed about
withholding information about offensive biological warfare, Kamai admitted,
“Interrogations were carried out too soon after the surrender.” According to
Kamai, the uneasiness of the Japanese kept them from speaking freely. If the
Japanese disclosed data about their experiments and were assured that none of
it was used for war crime prosecution, then the scientists would divulge their
secrets.
With the assurance of no war crimes prosecution, Japanese scientists admitted
to human experimentation. As the Japanese observed that the Americans
prioritized keeping biological warfare information away from the Soviets and
that immunity from prosecution was a possibility, the Japanese shared the
results from their human experiments. When Fell met with Ishii, Ishii refused
to discuss biological weapons or human experiments until he received a written
guarantee of immunity.
American fear of biological secrets
falling into the hands of the Soviets was one motive for granting immunity to
the scientists of the Ishii Network. American officials also believed that the
combined data collected by the Japanese scientist contained a scientific and
military value that outweighed the moral and ethical issues. The final report
by U.S. scientists led by Dr. Edwin V. Hill and staff pathologist Dr. Joseph
Victor provided the government with detailed reports on the Japanese findings,
including 8000 pathological slides and hundreds of color drawings. The
Hill-Victor Report summarized the value in the Japanese data,
Such information
could not be obtained in our own laboratories because of scruples attached to
human experimentation…It is hoped that the individuals who voluntarily
contributed this information will be spared embarrassment because of it and
that every effort will be taken to prevent this information from falling into
other hands.
After
viewing the data, scientists of the American biological warfare program
encouraged General Macarthur to grant Ishii and his associates immunity.
Immunity became controversial within Truman’s cabinet, with the State
Department reluctant to approve the deal. The debate caused a delay, with the
Tokyo trials ending before the collection of all the evidence. This allowed the
United States access to the data accumulated by the Ishii Network scientists
while denying it to the Soviets.
Early in January 1947, the Soviet Union demanded
the extradition of Ishii and a number of his fellow researchers for
investigation of their experiments, which the Soviets had learned about from
captured officers and soldiers of Ishii's network after their invasion of
Manchuria. The Soviets also wanted information regarding biological warfare.
They warned that if the United States kept the data, the USSR would expose Japanese
medical atrocities at the Tokyo Tribunal, which conducted the war crimes trial
of Japanese leaders in 1946-1948. The Soviet Union did bring 12 captured
officers and soldiers to trial at an open military tribunal at Khabarovsk near
the China border in December 1949, often called the Khabarovsk Trial. The
conclusion to the military indictment read:
The preliminary
investigation in the present case has established that, in planning and
preparing aggressive war against the U.S.S.R. and other states, the Japanese
imperialists intended to employ on a wide scale for the accomplishments of
their aims, and in part did employ, a criminal means of mass extermination of
human beings—the weapon of bacteriological warfare… It has likewise
been established that, to accomplish their criminal plans, the Japanese
militarists did not stop at any atrocity, even performing inhuman experiments
on living people and exterminating several thousand prisoners by forcibly
infecting them with lethal bacteria.
JosephKeenan, the chief prosecutor for the International Military Tribunal for theFar East, labeled the Khabarovsk tribunal a “show trial.” Because the Soviets
used the trial for anti-American propaganda, the results lacked impact.
All twelve of the accused were pronounced guilty and sentenced to different
terms of two to twenty-five years in labor camps. None were sentenced to death,
and eleven were repatriated back to Japan in 1956, while the one remaining
committed suicide,
The silence on Unit 731 left
questions unanswered, among them the accusation that Allied prisoners of war
became subjected to human experimentation. The proximity of the POW camp at Mukden to Pingfan suggests that the use of allied prisoners was a possibility.
The desire of American officials to keep the data surrounding Japanese
biological research hidden, the failure to provide freed Allied prisoners a
complete physical exam, and the lack of records make a definitive answer very
difficult to ascertain.
However, testimonies from prisoners of frequent examinations by Japanese
medical authorities lend serious evidence that numerous prisoners were abused
in biological experiments.
The other important question to examine is what the United States did with the
data received from the Ishii Network. During the Korean War, both North Korean
and Chinese authorities claimed that the American military used germ warfare
through a variety of methods. The use of biological weapons during the Korean
War remains a debated and little-known accusation. American military historians
continue to deny the use of biological weapons by the U.S., while scientists
from Russia, China, and North Korea continue to insist that the accusations are
accurate.
After receiving immunity, the scientists
associated with the Ishii Network left the war behind and assumed prominent
roles within Japanese society. Many have acquired prestigious medical,
academia, and private industry positions. Unlike Germans found guilty of war
crimes, the Japanese of Unit 731 worked publicly with no fear of public
backlash. Some worked with their new American allies, who possibly helped the
pardoned Japanese obtain employment.
Shiro Ishii retired to his home in Shiba Prefecture, where he lived until his
death from throat cancer in 1959. During the 1980s and 1990s, the secrets of
Unit 731 began to appear. Newspapers, magazines, and books revealed the
long-hidden facts about the Ishii Unit. Most of the participants of Unit 731
kept quiet and refused interviews. Staying silent because of shame or loyalty,
most resisted attempts to share their experiences. As one attempt reveals,
When contacted by
telephone, the wife of a major, also convicted as a war criminal, said, “My
husband is really ill. We’ve suffered enough. We don’t have much time left.
Don’t torture us anymore. If he talks, memories come back and it’s really
painful. Other people, more responsible, escaped.” She cried and sobbed over
the phone. She refused to convey a request for an interview. Independent
reports confirm that he was still an active jogger two years after that call.
Many insist today that the failure to hold
those involved in the atrocities at Unit 731 continues to allow the Japanese to
downplay the severity of their atrocities. Hideo Shimizu was a minor when he
worked at Camp 731 and still recalls seeing containers securing human bodies
preserved in formalin in a specimen room and the body of a pregnant woman cut
open to display the fetus. Shimizu continues to struggle to spread the truth
about Unit 731 and the atrocities performed there. While the Tokyo District
Court has substantiated the facts behind Unit 731 in a lawsuit brought by
Chinese family members, Shimizu still hears accusations of being a liar.
Exhibits featuring the atrocities of the Ishii Network are often met with
complaints and protests.
However, even to this day, many in Japan
claim that the atrocities of Unit 731 have been exaggerated or even never
happened despite the overwhelming documentary evidence. The United States,
consumed with the rivalry of the coming Cold War, aided in Japan’s historical
amnesia. Cold War exigency placed national security over human rights and
ethical concerns. History demands that the atrocities of the Ishii Network
receive the spotlight so that the victims become not merely logs or maruta but individuals undeserving of
the suffering and death they endured.
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