1. Unit 731
By Harish Rajagopal

2. What was Unit 731?
Unit 731 was a unit for the purpose of research and development of biological and chemical warfare during ( ) WWII. Located in the Pingfang district in Harbin( now in northeast of China ), some of the most notorious war crimes were committed here during the war. This unit used human experimentation to conduct their research, a horrific thing to do. Unit 731 was the Auschwitz of Japan.

3. Shiro Ishii and the Start of Unit 731
Shiro Ishii was the Chief Medical Officer of the Japanese army. In 1932 he was placed in charge of the Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory. He then formed a secret group called the “Togo Unit” for chemical and biological experimentation. Originally located in the Zhongma Fortress, he had to relocate to Pingfang due to a jailbreak in 1934 and an explosion in In Pingfang, he set up a much larger facility for human experimentation. Here, their new human experimentation project was code-named “Murata”. Murata meant logs, and was used to refer to the prisoners and victims. This was the beginning of almost ten years ( ) of atrocities.

4. Victims of Unit 731
Unit 731’s lab and research work was a death sentence for (a disputed number of) over 3,000 men, women and children. Over 10,000 were killed in the field tests ( such as the testing of bacterial bombs, chemical gasses, etc. ), but that number varies due to the lack of records kept by the Japanese. Unlike the Germans who kept documentation of all their victims at Auschwitz, the Japanese just massacred without care. Victims in Unit 731 were of many different races. Over 70% were Chinese, close to 30% were Russians, and the rest were of other races such Americans, Frenchmen, English, Koreans, and Mongolians. Once brought in to the Unit, no one expected to leave alive.

5. Laboratories and Facilities
150 buildings covering an area of over 6 square kilometers, Unit 731 was a intimidating sight. Overall, the Unit had many factories which produced all kinds of chemicals, germs, and bacteria used in experimentation on their prisoners. There were around “4,500 containers to used to raise fleas [for spreading diseases on enemies], six cauldrons to produce various chemicals, and around 1,800 containers to produce biological agents.” It was so large that it could “produce 30kg of bubonic plague in several days.” That is a phenomenal number when talking in terms of bacteria. The had hundreds of labs to perform dissections and vivisections, conduct biological experiments, and perform many kinds of test on humans for their terrifying developmental and scientific purposes.

6. Vivisections and Surgical Experiments
A Vivisection is to operate on a live animal (In this case a human) for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research. In Unit 731, many of the prisoners were vivisected without the use of any anesthesia. Anesthesia is used to numb the pain of an operation, but without any anesthesia like these victims, it feels like being sliced open piece by piece – alive. Prisoners were deliberately injected with diseases like syphilis and gonorrhea so that doctors could study the effects of the disease on a live, infected human. The scientists and researchers at the unit performed these surgeries for the purpose of studying the effects of diseases, they had purposely injected, on the human body. They removed organs out of a living human’s body to study the diseases. Anesthetics were not used because they didn’t want the anesthetic to affect or change the organs and parts of the body that had the disease in any way. They did not even wait for the patient to die of the disease before cutting them open because they feared the natural decomposing process after death might affect the results.

7. Terrible Types of Vivisections
Some people’s limbs were amputated for the study of blood loss. Other people had their limbs cut off and reattached to another part of their body. To study frostbite, prisoners were made to stand in the freezing cold while buckets of water was dumped on them periodically. Their frostbitten limbs were tested by hitting the limb with a stick. If it made the sound of a stick on a board, they knew it was frostbitten. The doctors would then either amputate the limb, throw the frostbitten person into boiling water whole, or let the limb thaw out without doing anything to study the rotting of limbs if left untreated. According to a source, “Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and the esophagus reattached to the intestines. Parts of the brain, lungs, liver, etc. were removed from some prisoners.” This was truly a horrifying experience for anyone trapped in Unit 731.

8. Biological Experiments
Bubonic Plague, cholera, smallpox, botulism, anthrax, typhoid, dysentery, syphilis, and gonorrhea are just a few out of the many diseases the researchers tested on the prisoners of Unit 731. After being infected with these diseases, the prisoners were used to conduct many types of test in order for the doctors to find a good cure for the disease. The effects of the disease were studied and the scientists came up with was to launch biological attacks on their enemies.

9. Biological Attacks
The studies on the prisoners with infections and disease showed the Japanese military that some pathogens are very deadly. Using these results, researchers quickly developed plans for biological attacks. Through these biological attacks (mainly on China), the Japanese were able to infect reservoirs, agriculture, wells, and other areas with these deadly pathogens. The Japanese army dropped food supplies and clothing to areas in China which Japan had still not occupied. These food supplies and clothing were infected with deadly diseases and viruses. Also, food and candies that were poisoned were distributed to the naïve prisoners and the effects of the poison on the prisoners were studied. In 2002, a flea spraying attack was done on Changde, China. Over 580,000 people died of this attack because the billions of fleas released on the area were all infected and contaminated with many types of fatal and deadly pathogens. As a result, the infections spread from the fleas to the people and wiped out much of the area.
Pathogens

10. Weapon Testing
The monstrosities didn’t just stop there. Outside, there were many field tests conducted using the prisoners as sacrifices. These innocent people were also used as targets to test flamethrowers. They were also used to test hand grenades from different distances and different positions. Some people were tied to stakes and were targets to test chemical weapons, explosive bombs, and germ-releasing bombs. Not only was there lab testing on prisoners, but there were terrible field tests as well.

11. Other Horrors of Unit 731
There were many other horrors of Unit 731 such as:
People deprived of food and water to determine time until death
People placed in centrifuges and spun to death
People having horse urine injected into their kidneys
People hung upside down until they choked to death
People placed in high pressure chambers until death
People exposed to lethal doses of x-rays
People injected with animal blood
People placed in gas chambers filled with many chemical weapons
People injected with sea water to see it could replace saline solution
People burned alive
People buried alive

12. All in all, Unit 731 was the worst nightmare for any human being during WWII besides Auschwitz. Anyone who entered, never made it out. It was an atrocity and one which was a notorious war crime of WWII. Unit 731? More like Unit Heaven, here I come.