Unit 731 Map Found by the Soviet Union

by Haddie Beckham ​
Unit 731 was created in 1938 by the authorization of Emperor Hirohito in Japanese-occupied Manchuria not far from Pinfang with the aim of developing biological weapons. Unit 731 was supported by Japanese universities and medical schools which supplied doctors and research staff. Organized under the alias of The Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army, Unit 731 operated as a covert chemical and bacteriological warfare research and development, conducting and responsible for some of the most atrocious war crimes of imperial Japan. Unit 731 was led by General  Shiro Ishii[1]. 

(continued) Ishii’s Unit fostered close relations with other secret facilities, such as Unit 100, and the Kwantung Army, from whom the Unit received many of their test subjects. Prisoners were referred to as maruta, “logs” for secrecy and dehumanization reasons. According to scholars, no less than 3000 prisoners at Unit 731 were murdered as a result of the experiments, mainly Chinese, but also prisoners of different ethnicities and nationalities; historian Sheldon Harris has estimated that the number of those killed as a result of the Japanese’ testing in the surrounding area may have killed 200,000 civilians and troops or more.[2]

This map, uncovered by the Soviets in 1945 after the Unit had been destroyed, shows the interior layout of Unit 731. Unit 731 had other units underneath it in the chain of command; there were several other units under the auspices of Japan's biological weapons programs. Most or all Units had branch offices, which were also often referred to as “units” or “detachments.”[3] The Unit 731 complex covered 2.3 square miles and consisted of more than 150 buildings. The complex contained various factories. There were specific facilities (referred to as “groups” here) for each area of research; there were rooms designed specifically for the research of anthrax, rodents, typhus, etc. Alongside the research areas, Unit 731 had housing residency for scientists, workers, and their families. Not all residents had access to the prison and research facilities. Additionally, Unit 731 had around 4,500 containers to be used to raise fleas, six cauldrons to produce various chemicals, and around 1,800 containers to produce biological agents. Approximately 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of bubonic plague bacteria could be produced in a few days.[4]

In August 1945, after the Soviet Red Army entered Manchuria, the government in Tokyo ordered that all the research facilities in Manchuria be destroyed to erase all incriminating material. A skeleton crew began the liquidation of Unit 731 on either August 9 or 10, while the rest of Unit 731 evacuated. The design of the facilities made them hard to destroy by bombing, and several remains of the building were left standing. While most of the unit managed to escape, a few former employees and soldiers of the Kwantung Army were captured by Soviet forces.

Схема расположения особого отряда no. 731, скрывавшегося под вывеской “Главной базы управления по водоснабжению и профилактике частей Квантунской армии”
English: Map of the location of special unit No. 731, hiding under the sign “the Main base of the Department of water supply and prevention of the Kwantung army units”
Page: 300

​

English: Breakdown of the map (пояснения к схеме) 
Commercial management. The 1st division, the 4th division, the medical corridor. Central corridor.
1st floor. The 4th division. Groups: Karasawa (production of bacteria); Asashina (the study of typhus and production of vaccinations)
2nd floor. The 1st division. Groups: Ishimura (the study of frostbite); Minato (the study of cholera); Ejima (the study of dysentery); Ota (the study of anthrax); Okamoto and Ishikawa (the study of pathogenesis); Utime (the study of blood serums).
 3rd floor. First division. Groups: Tanabe (the study of typhus); Futaka (the study of tuberculosis); Kusami (pharmacological studies)


Under the numbers (Под цифрами) 

1. 1st floor. Hospital, administrative–commercial organs. 
   

2nd floor. “Exhibition room” (samples of various human body parts, reflecting the results of “studies”), conference hall, “room of the dead”, office of the boss of the unit, bookkeeping, stationary, planning unit.

1.  1st floor. Mail center, telegraph, administrative–commercial organs, library
   

    2nd floor. Classrooms for practice lessons 

1. Book depository. 4. Group Tanaka (the study of bugs). 5. Group Ishimura (the study of frostbite), refrigerating chamber. 6. Utilities room. 7. “Logs,” group Arita (x-ray surveys). 8. “Logs”. 9. Group Kazahara (the study of viruses). 10. Group Takahashi (the study of the plague)     ​
   

11. Autopsy room (accomodations for post–mortem autopsies).
12. Oven for burning corpses. 13. special group vivariums
14. Room for the sampling of blood. 15. Barn. 16. Group Naguti (the study of rickets). 17. Group of engineer work
18. Gas distribution chamber. 19. Gas tank. 20. Guard accommodations. 
2nd division
21. Experimentations. 22. Air group. 23. Hangers. 24. Radio group. 25. Group Yagisawa (the study of plants). 26. Runway.
27. Garages
3rd division 
28. Transportation group
The division of material supply
30. Block “Ro”(vaccination storage, sterile refrigeration chambers and heat chambers, high temperature heat chambers, stationary, garage)
31–38. Administrative-commercial rooms. (there are no objects under the numbers 39–49 on the map because they are located in Harbin).
Training division
50–59. Training and administrative-commercial organs and accommodations
“The village of Togo”   
60. Shinto temple. 61–71, 73–74. Living residencies and management-household accomodations for employees of the unit. 72. Gas chamber. 75. Barbed wire fences. 76. Еarthen shaft. Trench without water. A high-current voltage. 77. Earthen shaft. Trench without water​

[1] Materialii sudebnevo protsessa po delu byvshiy vo’yennasluzhashchiih yaponskoy armii, obvinyayemyyh v podgotovke i primyenii bakteriologicheskevo oruzhiya. [Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons]. Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoe literaturoy [State Publishing House of Political Literature] , Moscow. 1950, pp. 8, 101, 110
[2] Harris, Sheldon. Factories of Death. London, Routledge, 1994, p. 218
[3] Materials on the Trial, p. 7
[4] Materials on the Trial, p. 263

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