Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research unit that was utilized by the Imperial Japanese Military in Northern China during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945. It was responsible for some of the wars greatest atrocities against the Chinese. Practices such as vivisection and weapons testing were among many of the horrific things done to the test subjects. It would eventually be one of the grim predecessors to biological warfare research that many countries have today.
Located in Pingfan, China, Unit 731 was founded in 1935 and was in use all the way up until the end of the war in 1945. At its inception, it was a division of the Kempeitai, Japan’s secret police, but by the end of the war, power had been fully transferred to General Shiro Ishii,
an officer in the Kwantung Army. The facility that the army used was built between 1934 and 1939 and the group adopted the name "Unit 731" in 1941. The Kwantung Army had direct control over the unit for the majority of the war because of their large presence in Manchuria.
After the defeat of Russia during the Russo-Japanese War, Japan obtained a large swathe of land in Manchuria and the areas neighboring to the South Manchurian Railway. The Kwantung Garrison was established in 1906 to defend this territory, and originally was composed of an infantry division and a heavy siege artillery battalion, accompanied by six garrison battalions as railway guards positioned along the South Manchurian Railroad, for a total of 100,000 men by 1939. After a reorganization in 1919, the Kwantung Garrison was renamed the Kwantung Army. In the Imperial Japanese Army of the 1920s and 30s, the Kwantung Army was an important pillar of the radical "Imperial Way Faction", with many of its senior leaders advocating political change in Japan through the violent overthrow of the civilian government to bring about a Sh”wa Restoration, with a reorganization of society and economy along totalitarian-state-fascist lines. They also advocated a more aggressive, imperialist foreign policy regarding the Asian mainland. Members or former members of the Kwantung Army were active in numerous take-over attempts against the local governments, which led to the February 26 Incident of 1936.
The creation of the Army that would strong-arm Northern China for almost twenty years led to the creation of the biological warfare unit, Unit 731, because there was no restriction on the soldiers or their superiors with regards to how they conducted themselves in China. They could rape, pillage, and kidnap to their heart’s content as long as they remained subordinate to the Imperial Military. The Japanese government never recognized what they were doing in Manchuria with biological warfare, so there was no way to contain what was happening. In their book Japan at War: An Oral History, Haruko Taya Cook and Theodore F. Cook write ‘The very existence of such a unit and research program has never been fully acknowledged officially-neither during the American Occupation of Japan, nor now- though an official of the Health and Welfare Ministry admitted that before the Japanese Diet in 1982 that Ishii had received a retirement pension.’ Further research, outside of testimonies from guards and doctors at the complex, have provided little to no information regarding the unit’s work because of American politicking. American desire to glean more information regarding chemical and biological warfare was used as incentive to get doctors and officials to hand over their information and practices, in exchange for a pardon, therefore, none of the information related to their activities was released during war trials and no one was able to prosecute them for their heinous crimes.
The unit took part in many practices that, today, would be considered a complete violation of human rights and the Geneva Conventions. Vivisection, germ warfare, frostbite, pregnancy, and weapons testing were the most common practices used by the unit in order to provide the overall military with research that would allow them to sweep through the Pacific and defeat America.
Vivisection was the most prominent action taken by doctors in the compound. Thousands of Chinese, held at prisoner of war camps were subjected to vivisection, often without anesthesia and usually ending with their death. Vivisections were performed on prisoners after infecting them with various diseases. Researchers performed invasive surgery on prisoners, removing organs to study the effects of disease on the human body. The surgeries, if they can even be called surgeries, were conducted while the subjects were still alive and conscious because doctors feared that decomposition would affect the results. Similar to vivisection was frostbiet testing. Doctors would dip various appendages into water, and let them to freeze. Once frozen, it was determined after the ‘frozen arms, when struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck", then ice was chipped away and the area doused in water. The whole purpose of this testing was to see if limbs and other body parts could still function correctly after healing from frostbite. This research would allow the army to figure out what severity they could operate the soldiers in brutal cold.
Germ warfare was less common, but still used by Unit 731. Prisoners were subtly injected with viral inoculations disguised as vaccinations. Syphilis and gonorrhea were transmitted through rape and forced sex between patients and guards. Cholera, anthrax, and the bubonic plague were transmitted through injections and infected clothing. After this transference of disease, many women were forced into pregnancy to view the effects on newborns and just to see if the newborns could survive. If the mother died before giving birth or the infant was dead, the subject was not considered a failure because there was no real benefit for the Army regarding that research.
After all of this research, test subjects were generally cast aside to die or they were used for general weapons testing by the Army, not the biological warfare unit. Prisoners were used to test grenades positioned at various distances and in various positions to see the varied damage to the body and flame throwers were tested on humans. Humans were tied to poles and used for target practice to test guns, disease-releasing bombs, gas weapons, and explosive bombs.
The reason that there was been much controversy regarding Unit 731 is the complicity and secrecy of the guards and doctors. The majority have refused to testify and say what they did, and of those who did, very few even say that what happened was a bad. The Military Secrets Protection Law was enforced harshly by the Kempeitai in the early years of the war and then by the Kwantung Military Police later in the war. Tamura Yoshio, a worker of the Unit, says ‘Japan was very spy-conscious, so I wasn’t really shocked by these things’. This was regarding the security, secrecy, and penalization for anyone who dared to reveal secrets regarding their work. The work of the trainees at the compound greatly desensitized them from their atrocities and they ‘came not to think anything of it, eve when conduction experiments on human beings.’ They never thought that what was happening was wrong until after the war ended. Tamura Yoshio spoke of how even if one of the workers was infected by a disease being used by the unit, they too would be used for general dissection. They would be given a promotion and cremated, but the organs and body parts useful for the Army were removed and studied.
There was no compassion in the doctors and guards. Yoshio spoke of how he just ignored all of the horrid things around him and the hatred and begging coming from the prisoners that he experimented on. They were considered ‘Japanese devils’ and the people of china had a visceral hatred for these doctors and guards that surpassed even their hatred of the military occupiers in the villages and cities. This first-hand account from an actual insider of the Unit 731 compound shows how destructive this military fringe actually was. They completely degraded the way that the Chinese people of Manchuria were actually seen by Japan. They were nothing more than lab rats. A confession of sorts by Japanese guards and doctors is seen as a huge deal for the international community. Article titles such as ‘Ex-officer admits to torturing Chinese’ are very far and few in between because of the feeling that the activities should be kept secret to protect Japan’s image.