Erased Identities- How POWs were Hidden in the Shadows of the Atomic Bomb

by Sapphire Dingler

In the aftermath of World War II, the sheer scale of human loss often obscured the more intimate atrocities committed under the cover of chaos. Few cases illustrate this better than the fate of several American prisoners of war (POWs) held in Japan, whose deaths were falsely recorded as casualties of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki. In reality, some of these men perished not in the blast, but on the operating tables of Kyushu Imperial University.

B-29 crew that were used for live vivisection experiments. Photograph: ww2db.com, Accessed September 24, 2025

Captain Kajuro Aihara, a Japanese officer closely tied to the Kyushu vivisection experiments, played a crucial role in orchestrating these crimes. While General Yokoyama Isamu authorized the transfer of POWs, it was Aihara who oversaw the surgical sessions, ensuring that logistics, concealment, and even cremation were handled with chilling precision. The remains of the American POWs were deliberately mixed with those of Japanese civilians, erasing distinctions between victims and obscuring evidence of targeted medical experimentation.

Page 107 of Docket 290, listing the sentencing and punishment for those charged.

Section of list that shows the names of men killed via A-Bomb during WWII. This section of the list showcases the names of men from the B-29 Bombing, and vivisections list from Case #290. Source: Airmen Killed by A-bomb, 1946-03-05, A0118,” Mansell POW Resources, accessed October 1, 2025, http://mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/fukuoka/fuk_01_fukuoka/fukuoka_01/Airmen_killed_by_A-bomb_1946-03-05_A0118.pdf

This concealment extended far beyond the disposal of bodies. Official documentation was carefully shaped to tell a different story. One striking example is the record titled “Airmen Killed by A-bomb, 1946-03-05, A00118” in the Mansell POW Resources archive. This document lists Allied prisoners who were reported as having died in the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in August 1945. On the surface, it appears to be a routine casualty list. But when cross-referenced with testimony and trial documents from Yokohama War Crimes Case #290, a darker truth emerges: several of these men were not victims of the bomb at all. They had been vivisected by Japanese doctors at Kyushu Imperial University.
Among the names that appear in both the atomic bomb casualty list and in vivisection accounts are William Fredricks, Dale Plambeck, Leon Czarnecki, and Robert Williams. Their deaths were officially attributed to the A-bomb, yet evidence from the war crimes trials reveals that they were executed through surgical experimentation. This overlap highlights how wartime record-keeping—and even postwar reporting—helped obscure atrocities, creating a false narrative that protected perpetrators and denied victims their true stories.

First page of the list of Allied POWs killed from an A-bomb. Source: Airmen Killed by A-bomb, 1946-03-05, A0118,” Mansell POW Resources, accessed October 1, 2025, http://mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/fukuoka/fuk_01_fukuoka/fukuoka_01/Airmen_killed_by_A-bomb_1946-03-05_A0118.pdf

The problem of historical accuracy is compounded by the way Japanese clerks recorded foreign names. Often working phonetically, clerks transcribed surnames in ways that diverged significantly from Allied military records. For example, “Plambeck” might appear as “Blanbeck,” or “Czarnecki” rendered as “Kuaanik.” These seemingly small irregularities complicate the work of historians today, making it difficult to match names across records and trace the fates of individual POWs. In some cases, these discrepancies may have been simple clerical mistakes. In others, they may have served as another layer of obfuscation, shielding those responsible from accountability.
What emerges is a troubling picture: the blending of bureaucratic slippage, deliberate concealment, and the sheer devastation of war created an environment where medical crimes could be hidden beneath the larger catastrophe of the atomic bombings. By reporting POWs as bomb casualties, the Japanese military and medical establishment not only disguised acts of human experimentation but also exploited one of the most destructive events in human history as cover.
For historians, the implications are profound. These inconsistencies remind us that the historical record is not neutral. It is shaped by those who write it, often leaving silences where truth should stand. In the case of the Kyushu vivisections, the official story was one of indiscriminate death by atomic fire. The reality was far more intimate and horrifying: Allied airmen, already prisoners, were cut open alive in the name of science.
Today, researchers can observe multiple sources in the archives to help peel back these layers of concealment. By comparing casualty lists with war crimes trial records, researchers are reconstructing a more accurate picture of what happened to these men. Yet the work is painstaking, hindered by clerical inconsistencies and the intentional destruction of evidence.
In the end, the story of Captain Aihara and the Kyushu vivisections is not just about wartime atrocity—it is about the fragility of historical truth. Records can lie. Names can be misspelled. Victims can be erased twice: first by death, and then by the loss of their story. Preserving their memory requires confronting the uncomfortable reality that even in official archives, concealment and distortion linger.



Sources
Mansell POW Resources. “Airmen Killed by A-bomb, 1946-03-05, A00118.” Accessed October 1, 2025. http://mansell.com/pow_resources/camplists/fukuoka/fuk_01_fukuoka/fukuoka_01/Airmen_killed_by_A-bomb_1946-03-05_A0118.pdf.
United States of America v. Nishitani et al. (Kyushu Imperial University Vivisection Case), Case 55, Yokohama War Crimes Trials, National Archives, Record Group 331.
United States of America v. Kajuro Aihara et al. (Shinagawa POW Hospital Case), Case 290, Yokohama War Crimes Trials, National Archives, Record Group 331.

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