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        • Post WW2 Aftermath of Thailand
      • The Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial - Guide >
        • Defendants of Khabarovsk War Crime
        • The Japanese Empire and USSR in WW2
        • The Employment of the Bacteriological Weapon in the War
        • Planning of Japan invasion to USSR
      • Unit 731 Cover-up : The Operation Paperclip of the East - Guide >
        • Establishing Manchukuo
        • The Development of Unit 731
        • Plan Kantokuen and Bacteriological Warfare
        • The Downfall of the Japanese WW2 Era
        • Three Stages of Interrogations
        • Lasting Impacts
      • Marutas of Unit 731 - Guide >
        • How did Ishii Shiro start unit 731?
        • A Beta Testing Site
        • Establishing Pingfan
        • Experiences at the Human Experimentation Complex
        • Vivisection at the Unit 731
        • Anta Testing Grounds
        • Overall Advance from the Laboratory Creations
        • The End of the War
      • Prince Konoe Memoir - Guide >
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        • The End of Prince Konoe
      • Competing Empires in Burma - Guide >
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        • Operation U-Go
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        • History of Biological Weapons and The Young Ishii Shiro
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      • Taiwan The Israel of the East - Guide >
        • Background of Formosa
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        • Introduction of Wang Xuan
        • Colonel Memorandum
        • The Beginning of Biological Warfare
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        • Victims in Zhejiang’s Testimonies
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        • The Famine (1944-45)
        • Legacy of the 1944-45 Vietnam Famine
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        • Japan’s Imperialist Origins
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        • How World War II Complicated Food Scarcity and Invention
        • American Military Innovations
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        • Feeding the Army: The Adaptation of Japanese Military Cuisine and Its Impact on the Philippines
        • Mixed Dishes: Culinary Innovations Driven by Necessity and Food Scarcity
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Unit 731 Map Found by the Soviet Union

7/1/2020

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Header graphic featuring photo of old scattered maps.
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 E
pidemic 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

​
Picture
Picture
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.
2. 1st floor. Mail center, telegraph, administrative–commercial organs, library 2nd floor. Classrooms for practice lessons 
3. 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​

Picture
[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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  • Home
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  • Books
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  • Resource Page
    • Supplementary Research Guides >
      • Unit 731 - Guide >
        • Background of Biochemical Warfare Development
        • Imperial Japan's Chemical Warfare Development Program
        • Map of Unit 731
        • Personnel of Unit 731
        • Duties of Unit 731
        • Human Experimentation
        • [GRAPHIC] Germ Warfare Attacks
        • Cover Ups After the War
        • [OLD] Cover Ups After the War
      • Philippines' Resistance - Guide >
        • Philippines World War II Timeline
        • The Japanese Invasion & Conquest of the Philippines
        • Bataan Death March
        • Formation of Underground Philippines Resistance
        • Supplies of the Guerrilla Fighters
        • The Hukbalahap
        • Hunter's ROTC
        • Marking's Guerrillas
        • United States Army Forces in the Philippines of Northern Luzon (USAFIP-NL)
        • The Aetas
        • Chinese and Filipino-Chinese Nationalist Guerrilla Units
        • The Female Faces of the Philippine Guerrillas
      • Rising Sun Flag - Guide >
        • History of the Rising Sun Flag
        • Atrocities Committed Under the Flag
        • Rising Sun Flag in Pop Culture
      • Pinay Guerrilleras - Guide >
        • Japanese Occupation of the Philippine Islands: Pinays Answering the Call to Arms
        • The Fierce Heneralas and Kumanders of the Hukbalahap Guerrillas
        • Amazons of the Pacific Theater
        • Filipina American Veterans: Recovering the Extraordinary Feats of the Ordinary Pinays
        • The Legacy of the Asian Women Soldier
      • Fall of Singapore - Guide >
        • Singapore World War II Timeline
        • History of World War II in the Pacific
        • History of Singapore
        • Japan's Conquest in Asia
        • Japan's Invasion of the Malay Peninsula
        • Sook Ching Massacre
        • Double Tenth Incident
        • Social Changes and Challenges in Singapore
        • Voices from Syonan
        • Return to British Rule
      • Three Years and Eight Months - Guide >
        • Hong Kong before WW2
        • Buildup to World War 2
        • The Battle of Hong Kong
        • Life during 3 Years and 8 Months
        • East River Column Guerrilla Fighters
        • Prisoners of War Camps
        • End of Japanese Occupation
        • War Crimes Trials
      • Siamese Sovereignty - Guide >
        • The Land of Smiles
        • The Thai-Japanese Relationship
        • Phibun’s Domestic and International Policies
        • The Free Thai Resistance Movement
        • Post WW2 Aftermath of Thailand
      • The Khabarovsk War Crimes Trial - Guide >
        • Defendants of Khabarovsk War Crime
        • The Japanese Empire and USSR in WW2
        • The Employment of the Bacteriological Weapon in the War
        • Planning of Japan invasion to USSR
      • Unit 731 Cover-up : The Operation Paperclip of the East - Guide >
        • Establishing Manchukuo
        • The Development of Unit 731
        • Plan Kantokuen and Bacteriological Warfare
        • The Downfall of the Japanese WW2 Era
        • Three Stages of Interrogations
        • Lasting Impacts
      • Marutas of Unit 731 - Guide >
        • How did Ishii Shiro start unit 731?
        • A Beta Testing Site
        • Establishing Pingfan
        • Experiences at the Human Experimentation Complex
        • Vivisection at the Unit 731
        • Anta Testing Grounds
        • Overall Advance from the Laboratory Creations
        • The End of the War
      • Prince Konoe Memoir - Guide >
        • Who is Prince Konoe?
        • Preparation to Tripartite Pact
        • Emperor Hirohito and Prince Konoe
        • The End of Prince Konoe
      • Competing Empires in Burma - Guide >
        • What was the China-Burma-India Theater?
        • When did the China-Burma-India Theater Happen?
        • Who Fought in the China-Burma-India Theater?
        • The Second Sino Japanese War
        • Japan in the South
        • Operation U-Go
      • Battle of Shanghai - Guide >
        • The Battle of Shanghai. Background
        • Shanghai Before War
        • The First Battle of Shanghai 1932
        • Battle of Shanghai 1937
        • Aftermath of Battle for Shanghai
      • Ishi Shiro - Guide >
        • History of Biological Weapons and The Young Ishii Shiro
        • Establishment in Manchuria
        • Pingfang District - Harbin
        • Failures and Corruption
        • Post War
      • Taiwan The Israel of the East - Guide >
        • Background of Formosa
        • Industrialization of Japan
        • China During WWII
        • Taiwan under Kuomintang
        • New Taiwanese National Identity
      • Seeking Justice for Biological Warfare Victims of Unit 731 - Guide >
        • Introduction of Wang Xuan
        • Colonel Memorandum
        • The Beginning of Biological Warfare
        • The Bacteriological Warfare on China
        • Victims in Zhejiang’s Testimonies
        • After the War
      • Rice and Revolution - Guide >
        • The French Colonial Period
        • Anti-Colonial Resistance
        • The Rise of the Communist Movement
        • Imperial Japan’s Entry into Indochina
        • The Portents of Famine
        • The Famine (1944-45)
        • Legacy of the 1944-45 Vietnam Famine
      • Clash of Empires - Guide >
        • Japan’s Imperialist Origins
        • Japan’s Competition against the West: Nanshin-ron and Hokushin-ron
        • Japanese Imperialism Through the Lens of French Indochina
        • The U.S.-Japan Relations and the Pearl Harbor Attack
      • Hunger for Power and Self-SufficiencyI - Guide >
        • The Influence of War Rations on Post-War Culinary Transformations
        • How World War II Complicated Food Scarcity and Invention
        • American Military Innovations
        • Government-Sponsored Food Inventions in Europe during World War II
        • Feeding the Army: The Adaptation of Japanese Military Cuisine and Its Impact on the Philippines
        • Mixed Dishes: Culinary Innovations Driven by Necessity and Food Scarcity
      • Denial A Quick Look of History of Comfort Women and Present Days’ Complication - Guide >
        • The Comfort Women System and the Fight for Recognition
        • The Role of Activism and International Pressure
        • The Controversy over Japanese History Textbooks
        • The Sonyŏsang Statue and the Symbolism of Public Memorials
        • Activism and Support from Japanese Citizens
        • The Future of Comfort Women Memorials and Education
      • Echoes of Empire: The Power of Japanese Propaganda - Guide >
        • Brief Overview of Imperial Japan
        • Defining Propaganda
        • Propaganda Encouraging Action​
        • The Rise of Nationalism
        • The Formation of Japanese State Propaganda
        • Youth and Education
      • Shadows of the Rising Sun: The Black Dragon Society and the Dawn of Pan-Asianism - Guide >
        • Origins of the Black Dragon Society
        • The Influence of Pan-Asianism
        • Relationship with Sun Yat-sen
        • The Role in Southeast Asia
        • The Spread of Ideology and Espionage
        • Disbandment and Legacy
      • Chongqing Bombing: The Forgotten Blitz of Asia and Its Lasting Impact - Guide >
        • Introduction and Historical Background
        • The Class Divide During the Bombings
        • Resilience and Unity of Chongqing
        • Key Incidents - Great Tunnel Massacre
        • The Aftermath of the Bombings
        • Legacy and Commemoration
      • Shanghai's International Zone: A Nexus of War, Intelligence, and Survival - Guide >
        • Historical Background
        • The International Zone
        • Battles in Shanghai
        • Civilian Intelligence Efforts
        • Wartime Brutality
        • Aftermath & Legacy
    • Lesson Plans >
      • Reparations
      • Ethics in Science
      • Writing the Narrative of a Pinay Fighter
      • Privilege Journal
      • Environmental Injustices
      • Female Guerrillas
      • Hunter's ROTC
      • Scientific Advancements
      • Seeking Justice: A Humanities Lesson Plan
      • The Hukbalahap
      • Trading Immunity
      • Bataan Death March
      • Biochemical Warfare Development
  • History Remembered
Contribute