Posted on 01/30/2021 10:18:48 PM PST by nickcarraway
Unit 731 didn’t prevent epidemics—it spread them.
Japan has gone down in popular memory as the original victim of weapons of mass destruction, after the U.S. dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.
But it was China that was the real first victim of WMDs in World War II—and the perpetrator was Japan itself. Tokyo’s biological weapons killed hundreds of thousands of Chinese. And their murders still matter today.
It’s true that other nations—including Germany, America and Britain—maintained their own chemical and bio-weapons programs during the war. Mussolini’s Italy even employed mustard gas in Ethiopia in 1935. Yet fear of retaliation deterred the major powers from using chemical or biological weapons against each other.
But Imperial Japan had no such fear because backward China had no WMDs and no other means of massive retaliation. Moreover, Tokyo viewed the Chinese as a racially inferior enemy—one that foolishly resisted a massive Japanese army that tried for nearly a decade to subdue China.
Bio-warfare seemed one way out of China’s unseemly quagmire.
Unit 731, Japan’s biological warfare program, was formed in 1932 under the leadership of the notorious Gen. Shiro Ishii, chief medical officer of the Japanese army. Based in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, Unit 731 operated under the cover name “Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army.”
But Unit 731 didn’t prevent epidemics—it spread them. Nazi medical experiments on concentration camp prisoners, performed by monsters such as Josef Mengele, have been thoroughly documented.
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.
There was also the vivisection. “Human experimentation gave researchers their first chance to actually examine the organs of a living person at will to see the progress of a disease,” according to Hal Gold’s book Unit 731 Testimony.
“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.’”
As atrocities go, or as much as sane human beings can rank them, this doesn’t sound any worse than Nazi experiments. But unlike the Nazis, Imperial Japan actually weaponized its biological horrors.
Cholera was dumped into wells used by the Chinese populace. Fleas were carefully collected, infected with plague and then dropped in aerial bombs over Chinese cities and villages.
“The air team and those who knew how to handle bacteria would get into a plane together and spread germs over a village or other areas of population concentration,” said a Unit 731 member cited in Gold's book. “After that, the area would be examined for the effectiveness of the attack.”
“With plague, fleas were used as a carrier and transported in a ceramic bomb,” the unit member added. “At first, glass bombs were tried, but they did not work well. Rats weigh about 600 grams. They were infected with plague, then they were infested with 3,000 to 6,000 fleas each and loaded into the ceramic bomb. When the bomb is dropped and breaks, the fleas scatter.”
Half a million or more Chinese died in these attacks.
It would be satisfying to say that the perpetrators of Unit 731 were punished for their crimes. But there’s no happy ending here. In 1945, Ishii and the other members of Unit 731 made a deal with Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the U.S. government: they would turn over their research to the Americans—not the Soviets—in return for immunity from prosecution.
Even compared to the sordid dealings that allowed Nazi scientists and spies to trade their expertise for immunity from war crimes trials, this was repugnant.
Some might dismiss Japan’s bio-war against China as history from a past century. But that history still resonates. Memories of Japanese atrocities still linger in Asia. And as China and Japan appear on the brink of conflict over disputed islands in the East China Sea, it’s worth remembering that this time, it’s China and not Japan that has weapons of mass destruction.
Should Chinese ever contemplate the use of nuclear weapons against Japan, you can be sure the ghosts of Unit 731 will be at their side.
Seeing as how the USSR declared war on Japan between the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just days before the capitulation of Japan, how did Japan ever manage to collect a significant number of Soviet POWs?
Regards,
The Russians and Japanese had been in conflict on and off directly and by proxy since early 1900s. In the 1930s when the Japanese were heading West through China toward the Soviet border, it came to a head but both empires were distracted on other fronts for a full commitment of resources.
Battle of Lake Khasan took it to WW2 levels before a formal declaration of war.
Yes, I am aware of that - but it still bothers me when reference is made to "Soviet POWs in Japanese hands" without any further explication.
These Soviet prisoners were not POWs in the "classic" sense of the word. They were military personnel engaged in skirmishes, border incursions, undeclared conflicts, and the like who were kidnapped or otherwise fell into enemy hands and were interned, but who were probably never properly recognized as legitimate POWs under the rules of war.
Regards,
Believe it or not 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘦𝘯 𝘉𝘦𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘯 is/was available (uncensored) on Youtube as is/was one of its sequels 𝘔𝘢𝘳𝘶𝘵𝘢 2: 𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘖𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘋𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘭. Both films are extremely graphic, and some of the footage gruesome parts of the first film were used for the sequel. No movie has ever made me physically ill by merely thinking of it, but these two did the job.
One of the unit’s labs was in Northeast China. Not saying that their experiments left some effects in say a mystery cave of bats that made it’s way to Wuhan labs but it wouldn’t surprise me.
“Fleas were carefully collected, infected with plague and then dropped in aerial bombs over Chinese cities and villages.”
They had planned to do it here in southern California.
Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/operation-cherry-blossoms-night.html
There’s been wicked, evil people throughout history. Who are the wicked, evil people now? Cuomo and Fauci are among them.
Japan is now one of the best countries in the world to live in. No Second Amendment and no need for it, for 2 reasons: (1) No crime to speak of; (2) The government there doesn’t believe genocide is how you deal with political opponents.
Having said that, what they did in and prior to WW2 was horrific, and this is only one of many things. Those people are now out of power and nearly all dead, but Japan needs to keep in mind that China (and other countries) have very long memories, and if Japan cannot take care of themselves in a military sense, they may well find themselves at the receiving end of some Chinese ‘payback’.
We’re supposed to forever feel guilt for nuking them and putting some
in internment facilities- not me.
Is that the one where they put one of the subjects in a pressure chamber and his eyes and intestines popped out?
If it is, I actually rented that one while IN Japan.
I was shocked they would have it since they still, to this day, deny it ever happened.
I read that they put people in glass tanks and then filled it with water so they could see how a person acted when they were drowning.
The Japanese deserved the two bombs dropped on them and more.
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The timing of this "historical" article seems suspicious. Published in December 2020 - with its intro cleverly written to tie in and mention the Covid epidemic - it seems designed to gain sympathy for the existing Chi-Com government. I'm not falling for it.
As an individualist, I know millions of people in any country are never in "lock step" with the inhumane actions of their current leadership/rulers... The U.S. under Socialist Democrats in the White House, is a case in point.
So, I do extend sympathy, and feel anger for, those who suffered at this "Unit 731."
However - I do NOT feel any sympathy for the government officials who organized these crimes NOR any concern for today's Chi-Com rulers who continue to oppress THEIR OWN PEOPLE & are attempting to EXPAND their repressive system to surrounding territories / nations. I'm sure many Chinese today wish to escape the tyranny they suffer -- and many Japanese citizens were and are today repulsed by the idea of a camp 731.
BTTT.
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