The Development of Unit 731

Unit 731 at Manchuria

Unit 731 was created in 1936 by the authorization of Emperor Hirohito in Japanese-occupied Manchuria with the aim of developing biological weapons. It had a partner unit, Unit 100. 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 unit, conducting and responsible for some of the most atrocious war crimes of imperial Japan. Unit 731 was led by General Shiro Ishii. Ishii’s Unit fostered close relations with other secret facilities, such as Unit 100, led by General Yamada, 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. ​
Current Day Unit 731 Museum – Harbin, China
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; According to several former workers of Unit 731 and Unit 100, the laboratories were constructed for the purpose of manufacturing bacteriological weapons, which the Japanese Army would use against namely the Soviet Union, Mongolia, and China.

Soviet investigation of Unit 731 and Unit 100

Unit 731 Museum (other perspective) – Harbin, China
The Soviet investigation team determined that in order for the facilities to remain shrouded in secrecy they were named “Water Supply and Prophylaxis Administration of the Kwantung Army” and “Hippo- -Epizootic Administration of the Kwantung Army.” In 1941, after Adolf Hitler invaded the USSR, however, the names were changed to “Unit 731” and “Unit 100.” General Ishii was placed in charge of Unit 731 and Major General Wakamatsu of the Veterinary Service led Unit 100. The Soviets also were able to determine that these units were composed of and directed by some of the top bacteriologic experts in Japan. Unit 731 alone had approximately 3,000 employees. Further, while Unit 731 and Unit 100 were the main facilities, each had numerous branches, connecting to the Kwantung Army, the Tama Unit in Nanking, also known as Ei-1644, and other detachments. The main function of these branches was “to prepare for the basic employment in war of the bacteriological weapons produced by the units.” 
These branches were directly subordinated to the Kwantung Army’s Commander-in-Chief and located within the immediate vicinity of the Soviet-Manchurian border. According to defendant Matsumura, that unit’s placement in Manchuria, close to the Soviet border, was ideal for the following reason: “In the case of war with the Soviet Union, bacteriological weapons would be used against the neighboring cities of Voroshilova, Khabarovsk, Blagoveshenska, and Chita.” This was all part of Japan’s Kantokuen plan to invade the USSR. Defendant Kawashima stated, however, a second reason why units 100 and 176 where constructed in Manchuria, saying that Manchuria offered a more fruitful possibility to gather a large collection of “human material from persons of non-Japanese nationalities” for the production of bacteriological weapons. The Japanese government had ruled it illegal to conduct human experimentation on Japanese citizens or within Japan. Therefore, all experiments with human test subjects had to be conducted in other areas under Japanese occupation.

Related Book

 Unit 731 Cover-up :
​The Operation Paperclip of the East 

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?