What was the name of the notorious biological research unit of the Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and WWII?
"the Korean War. Willoughby became a major general on 12 April 1945. Due to his initiative at the end of the Pacific Campaign war crimes charges against Shirō Ishii were dispensed with in exchange for information gathered by Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation in China. Additionally there was a monetary reward for Ishii. Willoughby's contribution(s) during the Korean War is subject to some significant controversy, with several sources insisting that he intentionally distorted, if not out and out suppressed, intelligence estimates that showed"
"the Japanese established Unit 100 to develop plague biological weapons, although the declared purpose of Unit 100 was to conduct research about diseases originating from animals. During the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II the headquarters of Unit 100 (""Wakamatsu Unit"") was located in downtown Hsinking, under command of veterinarian Yujiro Wakamatsu. This facility was involved in research of animal vaccines to protect Japanese resources, and, especially, biological-warfare. Diseases were tested for use against Soviet and Chinese horses and other livestock. In addition to these tests, Unit 100 ran a bacteria factory to produce the pathogens needed by"
"Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army conducted human experimentation on thousands, mostly Chinese. In military campaigns, the Japanese army used biological weapons on Chinese soldiers and civilians. Plague fleas, infected clothing, and infected supplies encased in bombs were dropped on various targets. The resulting cholera, anthrax, and plague were estimated to have killed around 400,000 Chinese civilians. Diseases considered for or known to be used as a weapon include anthrax, ebola, Marburg virus, plague, cholera, typhus, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, tularemia, brucellosis, Q fever, machupo, Coccidioides mycosis, Glanders, Melioidosis, Shigella, Psittacosis, Japanese B encephalitis, Rift Valley fever, yellow fever,"
"years, though some continued to be held well into the 1950s. After the surrender of Japan, the Soviet Red Army discovered secret installations for experimenting with and producing chemical weapons and biological weapons of mass destruction centered around secret Army Unit 731 and its subsidiaries. At these locations, the Kwantung Army was also responsible for some of the most infamous Japanese war crimes, including the operation of several human experimentation programs using live Chinese, American and Russian civilians, and POWs, directed by Dr. Shiro Ishii. Arrested by the American occupation authorities, Ishii and the 20,000 members of Unit 731 received"
"3,000 deaths. Furthermore, according to the 2002 ""International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare"", the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments is around 580,000. According to other sources, ""tens of thousands, and perhaps as many as 400,000, Chinese died of bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases"", resulting from the use of biological warfare. Top officers of Unit 731 were not prosecuted for war crimes after the war, in exchange for turning over the results of their research to the Allies. They were also reportedly given responsible positions in Japan's pharmaceutical"
"some modern Chinese historians estimate that 400,000 Chinese died as a direct result of Japanese field testing and operational use of biological weapons. Ban Shigeo, a technician at the Japanese Army's 9th Technical Research Institute, left an account of the activities at the Institute which was published in ""The Truth About the Army Nororito Institute"". Ban included an account of his trip to Nanking in 1941 to participate in the testing of poisons on Chinese prisoners. His testimony tied the Noborito Institute to the infamous Unit 731, which participated in biomedical research. During the final months of World War II,"
"with the infections during and after WWI. The Japanese deliberately infected horses, civilians, and prisoners of war with ""B. mallei"" at the Unit 731 Pingfang (China) Institute and Unit 100 facilities during World War II. The U.S. studied this agent as a possible biological weapon in 1943–44, but did not weaponize it. U.S. interest in glanders (agent LA) continued through the 1950s, except it had an inexplicable tendency to lose virulence in the lab, making it difficult to weaponize. Between 1982 and 1984, the Soviet Union allegedly used weaponized ""B. mallei"" during the Soviet–Afghan War. Before the Battle of Blenheim"
"Pingfan in Manchuria and commanded by Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii. This unit did research on BW, conducted often fatal human experiments on prisoners, and produced biological weapons for combat use. Although the Japanese effort lacked the technological sophistication of the American or British programs, it far outstripped them in its widespread application and indiscriminate brutality. Biological weapons were used against both Chinese soldiers and civilians in several military campaigns. In 1940, the Japanese Army Air Force bombed Ningbo with ceramic bombs full of fleas carrying the bubonic plague. Many of these operations were ineffective due to inefficient delivery systems, although"
"industry, medical schools and health ministry. One case of human experimentation occurred in Japan itself. At least nine out of 11 crew members survived the crash of a U.S. Army Air Forces B-29 bomber on Kyūshū, on May 5, 1945. (This plane was Lt. Marvin Watkins' crew of the 29th Bomb Group of the 6th Bomb Squadron.) The bomber's commander was separated from his crew and sent to Tokyo for interrogation, while the other survivors were taken to the anatomy department of Kyushu University, at Fukuoka, where they were subjected to vivisection or killed. During the final months of World"
"ignored or dismissed in the West as communist propaganda. In 1932, Surgeon General Shirō Ishii (石井四郎 ""Ishii Shirō""), chief medical officer of the Japanese Army and protégé of Army Minister Sadao Araki was placed in a command of the Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory (AEPRL). Ishii organized a secret research group, the ""Tōgō Unit"", for various chemical and biological experimentation in Manchuria. Ishii had proposed the creation of a Japanese biological and chemical research unit in 1930, after a two-year study trip abroad, on the grounds that Western powers were developing their own programs. One of Ishii's main supporters inside"
"test biological weapons, among other experiments. Between 3,000 and 12,000 men, women, and children died during human experimentation conducted by Unit 731. According to historians Yoshiaki Yoshimi and Seiya Matsuno, Emperor Hirohito authorized the use of chemical weapons in China. Furthermore, ""tens of thousands, and perhaps as many 200,000, Chinese died of bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases"", resulting from the use of biological warfare. Although owing to systematic Japanese destruction of records, there is no record of chemical or biological weapons in Manchukuo itself, these weapons of mass destruction were partly researched, produced, and stockpiled in Manchukuo by"
"after Japan's surrender in 1945. In response, in February 2011 the Ministry of Health began to excavate the site. China requested DNA samples from any human remains discovered at the site. The Japanese government—which has never officially acknowledged the atrocities committed by Unit 731—rejected the request. The related Unit 8604 was operated by the Japanese Southern China Area Army and stationed at Guangzhou (Canton). This installation conducted human experimentation in food and water deprivation as well as water-borne typhus. According to postwar testimony, this facility served as the main rat breeding farm for the medical units to provide them with"
"Defoliation bacilli bomb Defoliation bacilli bombs, made between 1932 and 1933 were used by the Imperial Japanese Army to spread bubonic plague across China. The deployment of these lethal munitions provided the Japanese with the ability to launch devastating biological attacks, infecting agriculture, reservoirs, wells and populated areas with anthrax, plague-infected fleas, typhoid, dysentery and cholera. The alumni of Unit 731, the unit that prepared these weapons, became top bioweapons researchers and were not prosecuted as war criminals. According to Richard Drayton, a Cambridge University history lecturer, researcher Shirō Ishii later moved to Maryland, where he conducted research into bioweapons."
"the Japanese liked to victimize them. Until World War II, the Japanese tended to leave alone those travelling to Manchukuo with a passport as they did not like to deal with protests from embassies in Tokyo about the mistreatment of their citizens. The Kwantung Army operated a secret biological-chemical warfare unit based in Pinfang, Unit 731, that performed gruesome experiments on people involving much visceration of the subjects to see the effects of chemicals and germs on the human body. In the late 1930s, the doctors of Unit 731 demanded more white subjects to experiment upon in order to test"
"an end to these operations. The Kwantung Army operated a secret biological-chemical warfare unit, Unit 731, based in Pinfang, that performed gruesome experiments on people that usually involved much evisceration of the subjects to see the effects of chemicals and germs on the human body that were always fatal for the subject. In the late 1930s, the doctors of Unit 731 demanded more white subjects to experiment upon in order to test the efficiency the strains of anthrax and plague that they were developing to kill whites, having already mastered strains capable of killing Asians by much experimentation on Chinese"
"However, according to Ishii's daughter Harumi, he stayed in Japan, where he died of throat cancer at the age of 67. Defoliation bacilli bomb Defoliation bacilli bombs, made between 1932 and 1933 were used by the Imperial Japanese Army to spread bubonic plague across China. The deployment of these lethal munitions provided the Japanese with the ability to launch devastating biological attacks, infecting agriculture, reservoirs, wells and populated areas with anthrax, plague-infected fleas, typhoid, dysentery and cholera. The alumni of Unit 731, the unit that prepared these weapons, became top bioweapons researchers and were not prosecuted as war criminals. According"
"does not include victims from other medical experimentation sites, such as Unit 100. Unit 731 participants of Japan attest that most of the victims they experimented on were Chinese while a lesser percentage were Soviet, Mongolian, Korean, and other Allied POWs. The unit received generous support from the Japanese government up to the end of the war in 1945. Instead of being tried for war crimes after the war, the researchers involved in Unit 731 were secretly given immunity by the U.S. in exchange for the data they gathered through human experimentation. Other researchers that the Soviet forces managed to"
"smallpox, botulism, anthrax, and other diseases into bombs where they were routinely dropped on Chinese combatants and non-combatants. According to the 2002 ""International Symposium on the Crimes of Bacteriological Warfare"", the number of people killed by the Imperial Japanese Army germ warfare and human experiments was around 580,000. According to other sources, ""tens of thousands, and perhaps as many as 400,000 Chinese died of bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and other diseases"" from the use of biological warfare. During the first few months at war with the United States following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Japan planned to use biological weapons"
"Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii. This unit did research on BW, conducted often fatal human experiments on prisoners, and produced biological weapons for combat use. Although the Japanese effort lacked the technological sophistication of the American or British programs, it far outstripped them in its widespread application and indiscriminate brutality. Biological weapons were used against both Chinese soldiers and civilians in several military campaigns. Three veterans of Unit 731 testified in a 1989 interview to the Asahi Shimbun that they contaminated the Horustein river with typhoid near the Soviet troops during the Battle of Khalkhin Gol. In 1940, the Imperial Japanese"
"of Japan), who also watched vivisection demonstrations by Ishii. He was decorated with the Order of the Golden Kite, Fourth Class, in October. From 1940, Ishii was appointed Chief of the Biological Warfare Section of the Kwantung Army, holding the post simultaneously with that of the Bacteriological Department of the Army Medical Academy, and was promoted to surgeon major-general in March of the following year. In 1942, Ishii began field tests of germ warfare agents developed, and various methods of dispersion (via firearms, bombs etc.) both on Chinese prisoners of war and operationally on battlefields and against civilians in Chinese"
"731 was one example of wartime atrocities committed on a civilian population during World War II, where experiments were performed on thousands of Chinese and Korean civilians as well as Allied prisoners of war. In military campaigns, the Imperial Japanese Army used biological weapons and chemical weapons on the Chinese, killing around 400,000 civilians. The Nanking Massacre is another example of atrocity committed by Japanese soldiers on a civilian population. According to the findings of the Tokyo Tribunal, the death rate of Western prisoners was 27%, some seven times that of POWs under the Germans and Italians. The most notorious"
"sentences from 10 years to life, and 7 were acquitted. Unit 731, a department of the Imperial Japanese Army located near Harbin (then in the puppet state of Manchukuo, in northeast China), experimented on prisoners by conducting vivisections, dismemberments, and bacterial inoculations. It induced epidemics on a very large scale from 1932 onward through the Second Sino-Japanese war. It also conducted biological and chemical weapons tests on prisoners and captured POWs. With the expansion of the empire during World War II, similar units were set up in conquered cities such as Nanking (Unit 1644), Beijing (Unit 1855), Guangzhou (Unit 8604)"
"and Singapore (Unit 9420). After the war, Supreme Commander of the Occupation Douglas MacArthur gave immunity in the name of the United States to Shirō Ishii and all members of the units in exchange for all of the results of their experiments. During World War II, Fort Detrick in Maryland was the headquarters of US biological warfare experiments. Operation Whitecoat involved the injection of infectious agents into military forces to observe their effects in human subjects. Subsequent human experiments in the United States have also been characterized as unethical. They were often performed illegally, without the knowledge, consent, or informed"
"the army was Colonel Chikahiko Koizumi, who later became Japan's Health Minister from 1941 to 1945. Koizumi had joined a secret poison gas research committee in 1915, during World War I, when he and other Imperial Japanese Army officers became impressed by the successful German use of chlorine gas at the second battle of Ypres, where the Allies suffered 15,000 casualties as a result of the chemical attack. Unit Tōgō was implemented in the Zhongma Fortress, a prison/experimentation camp in Beiyinhe, a village south of Harbin on the South Manchuria Railway. A jailbreak in autumn 1934 and later explosion (believed"
"from the former Soviet Union and Korea. General Shiro Ishii, the head of Unit 731, revealed during the Tokyo War Crime Trials that 254 Koreans were killed in Unit 731. Some historians estimate up to 250,000 total people were subjected to human experiments. A Unit 731 veteran attested that most that were experimented on were Chinese, Koreans and Mongolians. Colonial Korea was subject to the same ""Leprosy Prevention Laws"" of 1907 and 1931 as the Japanese home islands. These laws directly and indirectly permitted the segregation of patients in sanitariums, where forced abortions and sterilization were common. The laws authorized"
"backgrounds), 200 medical and scientific researchers, and 500 soldiers and noncommissioned officers. In 1994, the ""Japan's China Invasion Factual Investigation Record China Entourage"" confirmed the existence of the unit and collected testimony from former members and victims. Shigeru Maruyama, a former member of the unit said that one experiment involved starving prisoners to death and talked of seeing victims being operated on almost every day. Unit 8604 Unit 8604 () was the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department unit of the Japanese Southern China Area Army. It allegedly secretly researched biological warfare and other topics through human experimentation during the"
"was true, that the US was indeed experimenting with biological weapons. The report suggested a link to Unit 731. Former Unit 731 members Shirō Ishii, Masaji Kitano, and Ryoichi Naito, and other Japanese biological warfare experts were often named in the allegations. Former members of Unit 731 were linked initially, by a Communist news agency, to a freighter that allegedly carried them and all equipment necessary to mount a biological warfare campaign to Korea in 1951. The commission placed credence on allegations that Ishii made two visits to South Korea in early 1952, and another one in March 1953. Chinese"
"Some of the earliest instances of biological warfare were said to have been products of the plague, as armies of the 14th century were recorded catapulting diseased corpses over the walls of towns and villages to spread the pestilence. Later, plague was used during the Second Sino-Japanese War as a bacteriological weapon by the Imperial Japanese Army. These weapons were provided by Shirō Ishii's units and used in experiments on humans before being used on the field. For example, in 1940, the Imperial Japanese Army Air Service bombed Ningbo with fleas carrying the bubonic plague. During the Khabarovsk War Crime"
"cities. Some historians estimate that tens of thousands died as a result of the bio-weapons (including bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and others) deployed. His unit also conducted physiological experiments on human subjects, including vivisections, forced abortions, and artificially induced strokes, heart attacks, frostbite and hypothermia. From 1942–1945, Ishii was Chief of the Medical Section of the Japanese First Army. He was promoted to surgeon-general in March 1945 and in the same month planned to launch biological weapons against San Diego, California by utilizing kamikaze planes in Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night. In the final days of the Pacific War and"
"people killed in Far East Asia by Japanese germ warfare and human experiments was estimated to be around 580,000. The members of Unit 731, including Lieutenant General Shirō Ishii, received immunity from General MacArthur in exchange for germ warfare data based on human experimentation. The deal was concluded in 1948. The Imperial Japanese Army frequently used chemical weapons. Because of fear of retaliation, however, those weapons were never used against Westerners, but against other Asians judged ""inferior"" by imperial propaganda. For example, the Emperor authorized the use of toxic gas on 375 separate occasions during the Battle of Wuhan from"
"II. As a consequence of the war, China suffered 7 million to 16 million civilian deaths and 3 million military casualties. In addition, the war caused an estimated $383.3 billion USD in damage and created 95 million refugees. Manchuria came under Japanese control in 1931 as a state named Manchukuo. Many major cities thereafter, including Nanjing, Shanghai, and Beijing were occupied in 1937 by the Japanese. Notable incidents included the Nanking Massacre. In Manchuria, Unit 731, a medical unit of the Japanese army, researched biological warfare using Chinese civilians as test subjects, who were referred to as human 'logs' in"
"Yoshio Shinozuka Yoshio Shinozuka (篠塚良雄; 1923 – 20 April 2014) was a Japanese Imperial Army soldier who served as an army medic with a top secret biological warfare group called Unit 731 in World War II. He was a member of the Association of Returnees from China. According to his testimony, he was conscripted into Unit 731 at the age of 16. Shinozuka claimed to have been involved in conducting experiments and vivisections on Chinese captives near the northern Chinese city of Harbin. He was held in detention in China for many years, finally being released in 1965. In 1997,"
"Number Nine Research Laboratory The , also called the , was a military development laboratory run by the Imperial Japanese Army from 1937 to 1945. The lab, based in Noborito, Tama-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan focused on clandestine activities and unconventional warfare, including energy weapons, intelligence and spycraft tools, chemical and biological weapons, poisons, and currency counterfeiting. One of the weapons developed by the lab was the fire balloon, thousands of which were launched against the United States in 1944 and 1945. The unit, which at its peak was staffed by 1,000 scientists and workers, was disbanded upon Japan's defeat"