During the occupation of Japan after WWII, the US had an important decision to make. Should they hold those responsible for atrocities during the war accountable or should they take the information to advance national interest? The researchers who worked at Unit 731, the biological and chemical warfare research and development unit, were given immunity in exchange for their research data. Unit 731 included factories filled with humans, tested with various diseases, as well as field tests on civilians of the Soviet Union and China. Imperial Japan had aspirations to develop operative tools of biological warfare, one that was prohibited after World War I. Using alive human captives, the Japanese scientists of the medical profession gathered data on the progression of the diseases until the "human guinea pigs" collapsed. Most of these scientists lived peacefully after WWII, with a few of them having to go through the Khabarovsk Trial, which was deemed by the West as communist propaganda. Most of the horrors on Unit 731 had been hearsays and rumors until recently with the passing of the Freedom of Information Act. This book is based on documents found in the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration, Russian archival documents, and translations of the Khabarovsk Trial to paint a complete picture of the cover-up of the atrocious act of Unit 731. Readers could expect to questions themselves with this evidence: Should war crimes be covered up in the name of national interest?

Discusses the types of biological warfare experiments conducted by the Japanese during World War II and the scientists who worked on them, and examines the deal made with the U.S. government in exchange for results of those tests

In the aftermath of World War II, the Allied intent to bring Axis crimes to light led to both the Nuremberg trials and their counterpart in Tokyo, the International Military Tribunal of the Far East. Yet the Tokyo Trial failed to prosecute imperial Japanese leaders for the worst of war crimes: inhumane medical experimentation, including vivisection and open-air pathogen and chemical tests, which rivaled Nazi atrocities, as well as mass attacks using plague, anthrax, and cholera that killed thousands of Chinese civilians. In Hidden Atrocities, Jeanne Guillemin goes behind the scenes at the trial to reveal the American obstruction that denied justice to Japan’s victims. Responsibility for Japan’s secret germ-warfare program, organized as Unit 731 in Harbin, China, extended to top government leaders and many respected scientists, all of whom escaped indictment. Instead, motivated by early Cold War tensions, U.S. military intelligence in Tokyo insinuated itself into the Tokyo Trial by blocking prosecution access to key witnesses and then classifying incriminating documents. Washington decision makers, supported by the American occupation leader, General Douglas MacArthur, sought to acquire Japan’s biological-warfare expertise to gain an advantage over the Soviet Union, suspected of developing both biological and nuclear weapons. Ultimately, U.S. national-security goals left the victims of Unit 731 without vindication. Decades later, evidence of the Unit 731 atrocities still troubles relations between China and Japan. Guillemin’s vivid account of the cover-up at the Tokyo Trial shows how without guarantees of transparency, power politics can jeopardize international justice, with persistent consequences.

Under the leadership of Dr. Shiro Isshi, Unit 731 subjected 3,000-250,000 innocent men, women, and children to cruel experiments and medical procedures that were carried out by the brightest medical students and staff that Imperial Japan had to offer.

This is a riveting and disturbing account of the medical atrocities performed in and around Japan during WWII. Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of the continent. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments. In the first part of Unit 731: Testimony author Hal Gold draws upon a painstakingly accumulated reservoir of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities. The second half of the book consists almost entirely of the words of former unit members themselves, taken from remarks they made at a traveling Unit 731 exhibition held around Japan in 1994-95. These people recount their vivid first-hand memories of what it was like to cut open pregnant women as they lay awake on the vivisection table, inject plague germs into healthy farmers, and carry buckets of fresh blood and organs through corridors to their appropriate destinations. Unit 731: Testimony represents an essential addition to the growing body of literature on the still-unfolding story of one of the most infamous "military" outfits in modern history. By showing how the ethics of normal men and women, and even an entire profession, can be warped by the fire of war, this important book offers a window on a time of human madness, in the hope that such days will never come again.

Why was evidence of Japanese bacteriological and chemical warfare not presented at the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal and what part did America play in the conver-up of these crimes?

This book exposes Unit 731 as being the largest bacterial warfare force in the history of the Second World War. Manufacture and the use of biological weapons, the entire process of preparation and implementation of germ warfare, with the reflection on war and human nature, medical and ethical issues, is given by the testimony of the veterans of Unit 731. This evidence is provided by the surviving Chinese labourers and the families of the victims. The book focuses on five aspects: first, the inhuman medical crimes of Unit 731 weapons, the biological combats, and human experiments; secondly, the war damage and the postwar effects of biological war by Unit 731 brought to China and other Asian countries; thirdly, the survey and cover-up at the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials; fourthly the protection status of the site with development status of the exhibition and international exchanges of the Unit 731 Museum; fifthly and finally, there is a separate chapter discussing Japanese chemical warfare.

First Published in 2002. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Prior to and during the Second World War, the Japanese Army established programs of biological warfare throughout China and elsewhere. In these “factories of death,” including the now-infamous Unit 731, Japanese doctors and scientists conducted large numbers of vivisections and experiments on human beings, mostly Chinese nationals. However, as a result of complex historical factors including an American cover-up of the atrocities, Japanese denials, and inadequate responses from successive Chinese governments, justice has never been fully served. This volume brings together the contributions of a group of scholars from different countries and various academic disciplines. It examines Japan’s wartime medical atrocities and their postwar aftermath from a comparative perspective and inquires into perennial issues of historical memory, science, politics, society and ethics elicited by these rebarbative events. The volume’s central ethical claim is that the failure to bring justice to bear on the systematic abuse of medical research by Japanese military medical personnel more than six decades ago has had a profoundly retarding influence on the development and practice of medical and social ethics in all of East Asia. The book also includes an extensive annotated bibliography selected from relevant publications in Japanese, Chinese and English.

Euphemistically labeled as the "Water Supply and Prophylaxis Administration" and "HippoEpizootic Administration" of the Imperial Japanese Army, Unit 731 and Unit 100, as well as their subsidiary branches, performed human experimentation on the innocents under the leadership of Dr. Ishii Shiro. The Kempeitai, AKA, the military police captured any patriots for Unit 731's prison. The prisoners included Chinese patriots, civilians, Russians, and allied POWs. Although the exact number of victims is unclear since the Japanese destroyed most of the evidence at the end of the war, but it ranged from 3,000-250,000 innocent men, women, and children. The cruel experiments and medical procedures were carried out by the brightest medical students and staff that Imperial Japan had to offer. For the scientists to treat the prisoners less like humans, they called them "Marutas" or logs. The experimentations included their reaction to bubonic plague, typhoid, paratyphoid A and B, typhus, anthrax, smallpox, tularemia, infectious jaundice, gas gangrene, tetanus, cholera, dysentery, glanders, scarlet fever, undulant fever, tick encephalitis, "songo" or epidemic hemorrhagic fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, pneumonia, erysipelas, epidemic cerebrospinal meningitis, venereal diseases, tuberculosis, salmonella, frostbites, and many other viruses and bacteria. To observe the real-time effects of these deadly diseases and bacteria, these prisoners were often subject to vivisections without the use of anesthesia. Then there was the ANTA testing ground where the human test subjects were exposed to bacterial weapons under field conditions. For example, to test weapons developed with gas gangrene, ten Chinese prisoners were tied to stakes from 10-20 meters apart, and a bomb was set off by electricity. All ten prisoners were injured by shrapnel contaminated with gas gangrene. Within a week, they all died in severe torment. The study of the pathogens was also conducted with human experimentation. Vaccines were then developed to protect the Imperial Japanese Army in case they were to face a total war where they employ the bacteriological weapons produced by Unit 731. In the case where a human experimental subject was exhausted from the experiments, they were to be killed one way or another. Some test subjects were handed potassium cyanides, while others had porridge with heroin. These "medical doctors" who performed routine human experiments were allowed to escape persecution, unlike their Nazi counterparts in Europe. Most of them were rewarded handsomely with great careers after the war. Not only did they not face any consequences, but most of them also lived successfully after the war was over.