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March 8, 2014 |
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Unit 731 was a secret military medical unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that researched biological warfare and other topics through human experimentation during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II era. The unit was disguised as a water purification unit. It was based in Pingfan, near the city of Harbin, China|Harbin in northeastern China, the region which was then part of the puppet state of Manchukuo. It is estimated that over 3,000 Chinese and Korean civilians and as well as Allied POWs were killed in the Unit 731 facilities. Certainly more people died of field experiments directed by Unit 731, but there is no well established number. There were other units besides Unit 731, which serves as a general term in describing the Japanese biological warfare program. Other units include Unit 543 (Hailar, China|Hailar), Unit 773 (Songo unit), Unit 100 (Changchun), Unit 1644 (Nanjing), Unit 1855 (Beijing), Unit 8604 (Guangzhou), and Unit 9420 Singapore. The acts of Unit 731 are only one of many major war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army from the occupation of Manchuria in 1931 to the end of World War II in 1945, during which over 15 million Chinese, Korean, Filippino, Indonesian, Burmese, Indochinese civilians, Pacific Islanders and Allied POWs were killed. After these laboratories were destroyed by the Japanese to hide their crimes, many of the scientists involved went on to enjoy prominent careers in politics, academia and business. The US allowed these scientists to go free in exchange for their experimentation data. In 1932, Ishii Shiro and his men built the Zhongma Fortress, a prison on the outskirts of Harbin. In 1935 a jailbreak forced Ishii to shut down Zhoghma Fortress. Ishii moved closer to Harbin at Pingfang to set up a new facility.
Unit 731 was divided into eight divisions.
Image:Harbin_maj_enh_731_1.JPG|thumb|right|200px|One of the buildings now open to tourists The 731 complex covered six square kilometers and consists of more than 150 buildings. The facilities were very well designed making it hard to destroy them. Some of 731's satellite facilities still remain and are open to tourism|tourists. The complex contained various production facilities. It had around 4,500 containers for raising fleas, six giant cauldrons to produce various chemicals, and around 1,800 containers to produce biological agents. Approximately 30kg of bubonic plague bacteria can be produced in several days. Tens of tons of these biological weapons (and some chemical) were stored in various places in northeastern China throughout the war. The Japanese attempted to destroy every last evidence of the facilities after disbanding; however, this was not successful as evidence has occasionally harmed civilians even very recently. In particular, in August 2003, twenty-nine people were hospitalized after a construction crew in Heilongjiang inadvertently dug up chemical shells buried deep in the soil more than fifty years ago. Image:Harbin maj enh 731 2.JPG|thumb|right|200px|Information sign at the site today Ishii had wanted to use biological weapons in the Pacific conflict since May 1944, but his attempts were repeatedly foiled by poor planning and Allied intervention. When it was clear that the war would soon end, Ishii ordered the destruction of the facilities, and told his men "to take the secret to the grave." His Japanese troops blew the compound up in the final days of the war to destroy evidence of their experimentation. They also purposely released all the plague-infected animals. The United States believed that the research data was valuable because the allies had never conducted this type of human experimentation. Also, the U.S. did not want any other nation, particularly the Soviet Union, to acquire data on biological warfare|biological weapons. Therefore, in exchange for the data, the United States did not charge the officers of Unit 731 with war crimes. On the other hand, the Soviet Union relentlessly pursued the case and prosecuted several officials from the unit because many Soviets were also tortured and experimented upon, along with Mongolians and Koreans. The officials were tried in the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials. Many former members of Unit 731 became part of the Japanese medical establishment. Dr Katano Masaji led Japan's largest pharmaceutical company, the Green Cross. Others headed medical schools or worked for the Japanese health ministry. image:731monu.gif|thumb|right|200px|Unit 731 memorial in Tokyo Unit 731 activities are denial|denied by right-wing nationalist history of Japan|Japanese historians, who say they are fabrications by Chinese propaganda. Meanwhile left-wing organizations have published histories of Unit 731 that stress the supposed cover-up by the US (in exchange for the data). As with many WWII topics (and the subsequent political debate) references to Unit 731 are omitted from many Japanese history textbooks. Some see this as evidence that, in modern Japan, historical revisionism|revisionist history is part of the mainstream, which contributes to the perception that Japan has yet to accept full responsibility for the crimes of its past. In 1997, 180 Chinese, either victims or the family of victims of Unit 731, sued the Japanese government for a full disclosure, apology and compensation. In August 2002, the Tokyo District Court acknowledged the existence of Unit 731 and its biological warfare activities, but ruled that all compensation issues were settled by the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the Government of the People's Republic of China of September 29, 1972. In 2000, the United States Congress passed the Japanese Imperial Government Disclosure Act to declassified|declassify most classified U.S. Government records about war criminals and war crime|crimes committed by the Japanese during World War II. As of 2003, this will be done through the Nazi War Crimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group (IWG) http://www.archives.gov/iwg/. Japanese author Morimura Seiichi published the book The Devil's Gluttony (悪魔の飽食) in 1981, followed by The Devil's Gluttony - A Sequel in 1983, which were the first Japanese language publications to reveal the dark history of Unit 731. The Chinese movie Black sun 731 (Man behind the sun) is a film about the atrocities committed by the Japanese.
Category:War crimes Category:World War II crimes Category:Biological weapons de:Einheit 731 fr:Unit? 731 ja:731部隊 zh:731部队 This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Unit 731".
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