Japanese Medical Experiments Revealed (response to thread about "Pain" caused by US Internment Camps

Stars and Stripes --also: (Chronicle of the Second World War, p 660) ^ | 31 August 1945 | David Gould

[SkyPilot]

JAPANESE MEDICAL EXPERIMENTS REVEALED

Tokyo, 31 August 1945 ...Stars and Stripes

Horrific details of atrocities carried out by Japanese doctors are emerging as Allied PoWs are released. Prisoners have been subjected to vivisection. Others have been used as human guinea-pigs and injected with acid, inoculated with fatal diseases, or frozen at minus six degrees Fahrenheit (-20 C).

Eight U.S. airman shot down after B-29 raids in May died in vivisection experiments carried out by Professor Fukujior at Kyushu University. One PoWs stomach was removed, and an artery cut to see how long it was before he died.

Many of the atrocities have been at Japan's top-secret bacteriological warfare unit 731 at Harblin, in Manchuria. Prisoners were inoculated with anthrax, typhoid and cholera to test germ potency. Others have been boiled or dehydrated to death. Experiments included prolonged exposure to X-rays and prisoners subjected to a pressure chamber where the blood was forced out of their skin as they died in agony.

PoWs fear that 731's commander, Shiro Ishii, will escape prosecution in return for turning over germ warfare data to the U.S. Two released U.S. doctors also revealed today how they were made to prepare lethal acid-based solutions for Japanese doctors to inject into U.S. PoWs at a Tokyo hospital.

[SkyPilot]

Sorry if this is "old news", but if some here are going to say the Japanse placed into interment camps during WW II suffered

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/630513/posts

then this should be known.

[isthisnickcool]

Read up on how nice they were during the Bataan Death March. Real sweethearts.

And how did we handle them? Islamic terrorists should take note.

[billybudd]

What do the internment camps in the US have to do with the Japanese experiments?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Do you really believe that the response to one nation's attack on the US should be to throw US citizens into internment camps? Would it have been proper to throw US citizens of German descent (maybe named Eisenhower for example) into interment camps because of Germany's actions? Should people of English descent be put into internment camps because of English actions in Ireland?

[Frohickey]

Yep. All of this was already detailed in a History Channel documentary. All of the early germ warfare data that the US got were from the Japanese scientists that came to the US after the war. Most of that data was on Chinese people.

[2banana]

The US did throw Americans of German and Italian heritage into camps during WWII

[JimSEA]

I agree with you. We need to get away from this racial guilt crap. The people of Japanese decent who were interned were mostly loyal Americans, many of whom served in the US Army. The argument that they should have been punished on the basis of their race and ethnicity is roughly the same as that the racebaiting con men are using to demand reparations for slavery. That said, I can understand why thew Japanese-Americans were imprisoned and can even sympathize with the fear that prompted it. What I can not do is justify it based on the terrible treatment of US and Allied POWs by the nation of Japan.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Seems like not only do the Conservatives want the Constitution not to non-citizens but to some citizens as well. Hoover, among others thought these internments were not a good idea. The new Conservative Heros, Earl Warren and Franklin Roosevelt were behind the round up of American citizens of other-ethnicity. (Of course, the Patriot act was a Andrew Young and Gary Hart idea, two more new Conservative Heros.)

[#3Fan]

Would it have been proper to throw US citizens of German descent (maybe named Eisenhower for example) into interment camps because of Germany's actions?

Germans and Italians were interned also.

[#3Fan]

The Constitution makes provisions for holding Americans without charges in it's "suspension of Habeas Corpus" clause. Suspending Habeas Corpus means that a citizen can be held without charges. The Constitution specifically says the Congress may suspend Habeas Corpus in cases of rebellion or invasion. Japan invaded our airspace over Hawaii and many thought that a Japanese invasion of California was likely. Japan successfully invaded China, which had at least 4 times the population of the U.S., so it wasn't out of the question, and if Germany had defeated Britain and Russia, which at the time it looked like they might, they would've aided the Japanese in an invasion.

[BushMeister]

Excellent post. It shows the type of enemy we were up against. The general treatment of allied POWs was far worse in Japanese camps than in Nazi camps, and the survival rate was less than half as high.

How does this touch on the internment camps in the US? The nation had been attacked by Japan, and though regrettable, the need to segregate possible enemy-sympathetic elements is understandable. Did it violate the Constitution? Yes. Could things have been handled differently? Sure. Will we do something similar when China attacks the US? I hope so.

[donozark]

The death rate for American POWs in the ETO was 1%. In the PTO? 40%. That about says it all...

Source:VFW Magazine Sept.1994

[rockfish59]

yes, i want to know too how cruel it was in the camps where the japanese were given food, shelter, schools, gardens, health care, etc.
who cares about the slave labor, torture, starvation, beatings, murder and atrocities they inflicted on the americans, brits, & chinese?
hell, their CIVIL RIGHTS were violated when they were interned by those mean american captors!
the mean americans got just what they deserved when the 'goettge patrol' was ambushed on guadalcanal and the bodies were hacked to pieces by samurai swords.
who cares about the chinese babies who were tossed in the air and bayonetted in nanking?
the poor japanese internees had to actually chop up firewood for their wood stoves. what brutality!
we demand reparations NOW!!!
</sarcasm

[happygrl]

Several issues to note.

1. Not all Japanese were relocated. Japanese on the west coast were relocated away from the coast as signaling to off shore ships was occuring.. There were some valid concerns.

2. Japanese living in the interior of the U.S. were not sent to camps.

3. One of the purposes of relocation was to protect Japanese. I wasn't alive at the time so I can't speak to this.

4. This was an unfortunate chapter in our history, but I don't believe it is the evil that it has been made out to be. Californians who lived through the war have said that there was concern about spying and sabotage, and there were real threats to the Japanese who lived here.

Please let me know if anything I've stated is not true, as I am always open to being set right.

[#3Fan]

Another thread on the subject.

[backhoe]

Recalling Past Wars- the Bataan Death March, the Fall of Corregidor...

[JimSEA]

I do not know that we are necessarily in disagreement. However, I think the "for their own good" arguement is suspect of being rationalization after the fact in some portion.

A similar issue exists today. IMO we have every reason to use racial profiles to select individuals for extra examination at airports, Universities, etc. We should not, however jail everyone with swarthy complections and Middle Eastern names only on the strength of their name and complection. If a person, an individual, is an Islamic Militant advocating our destruction -- jail or boot them now. But if we sink to their level, we lose our civilization.

[Stone Mountain]

Sorry if this is "old news", but if some here are going to say the Japanse placed into interment camps during WW II suffered [...] then this should be known.

Actually, it was mostly Americans that were placed into those internment camps.

[Stone Mountain]

One of the purposes of relocation was to protect Japanese. I wasn't alive at the time so I can't speak to this

I don't understand this at all.

[ffusco]

the japanese still officially repress this from their history books. Many japanese do not know the atrocities their gov'ts did in Manchuria, Korea and Russia. Make no mistake The Japanese people are racist, but you'd never know because they bow, smile and mock you in their language.