(This is the paper for oral presentation at the symposium "Japanese Human Experimentation in Wartime China: inquiries into its historical, political, cultural and ethical issues" [S31] in the 22nd International Congress of History of Science, Beijing, July 29, 2005. References are left unchanged from a longer version (with Chinese characters and Japanese texts. PDF, 960KB), but the paragraphs mentioning "rotten leg diseases" were added. The numbers with [* ] notes the number of the slides showed in the speech.
I am grateful if you send me some comments, since I'm still revising this for the complete version that should be published as a chapter of The Oxford Textbook of Clinical Research Ethics, Oxford University Press, forthcoming.)
Takashi TSUCHIYA
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Faculty of Literature and Human Sciences
Osaka City University
Osaka 558-8585, Japan
tsuchiya@lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp
In order to avoid talking much longer, I omit many cases that should have been described in detail. In addition, I have no time to read the part discussing WHY, since we cannot discuss it without knowing specific facts.
Here I write every Japanese name in Western way, given name first and family name last. But in our own language we always put them in reverse order. Please notice that some Western references write Eastern names in Easterner usual do in domestic life, family name first and given name last.
All the texts cited from Japanese documents are translated by Tsuchiya.
This presentation has two parts. In the first half I describe a brief history of Imperial Japanese medical atrocities. It takes about 20 minutes. In the latter half I introduce some cases of them. It takes about 30 minutes.
Shiro Ishii [*1], the founder and leader of Japan's network of human experimentation facilities, entered the Army upon graduation from Kyoto Imperial University Medical School in 1920. In 1925, when the Geneva Convention prohibited the use of biological and chemical weapons, Ishii reasoned that these weapons might be hugely powerful, and began to lobby his superiors for research and development in biological warfare. In 1930, after a two-year trip to Europe and the United States, he became a professor in the Department of Epidemic Prevention of the Army Medical College (Rikugun Gun'i Gakko Boeki Bu--Boekigaku Kyoshitsu), located in Tokyo. He wanted to improve the prestige of medical officers in the Japanese Army by developing biological weaponry as a powerful attacking arm. Utilizing the Army's superior power in 1930s Japan, he also envisaged a national network for medical research that would be much more powerful and effective than the existing academic infrastructure, and furnished with luxurious laboratories that could freely use human subjects for Research and Development of military medicine.
The takeover of Manchuria by Japan's Kwantung Army in 1931 gave Ishii his opportunity. The following year, he established a large new department specializing in biological warfare under the deceptive name of the Epidemic Prevention Laboratory (Boeki Kenkyu Shitsu) in the Army Medical College [*2]. This laboratory became the headquarters of his network. Simultaneously he built a secret facility called the Togo Unit in Beiyinhe, a small town in Manchuria located about 70 km southeast of Harbin. This was Ishii's first prison-laboratory, where deadly human experimentation substantially began in the fall of 1933. The subjects were mainly Chinese but included some Russians, Mongolians, and Koreans who were arrested by the Kwantung Army Military Police as spies and resisters and scheduled to be executed without trial. Ishii and his colleagues thought it was better to utilize them as human guinea pigs than merely to execute them.
However the facilities of Beiyinhe were not sufficient for Ishii's project. The buildings were not strong enough to serve as a prison; in fact, 16 captives revolted and escaped in September 1934. So Ishii and the Army built a much larger, stronger prison-laboratory-factory in Pingfang, about 20 km southeast of downtown Harbin. Construction began at Pingfang in 1935, all residents of four villages nearby were forced to evacuate, and the huge complex was completed around 1938. In 1936, even before construction was completed, the Togo Unit became an official unit of the Japanese Army. This means the Japanese Emperor formally acknowledged Ishii's project.
The Togo Unit was now known as Epidemic Prevention Department (Boeki Bu) of the Kwantung Army, and as Unit 731. It was soon renamed the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department (EPWSD) (Boeki Kyusui Bu); in addition to their medical experimentation, Ishii's units were responsible for water purification for Japanese troops in China from 1937 on. Ishii had invented a water purification machine that could be easily carried to the battlefield. During the battles for Beijing and Shanghai, he sent teams to the front to operate it-garnering even more support from Army leaders. In 1938, the Japanese Army adopted Ishii's machine as standard equipment and organized 18 divisional EPWSDs (Shidan Boeki Kyusui Bu) whose directors were officers of Unit 731. By 1939, Ishii's network included some field water purification units, 18 divisional EPWSDs, and five permanent EPWSDs in Harbin (Unit 731), Beijing (Unit 1855) [*3], Nanjing (Unit 1644), Guangzhou (Unit 8604), and Tokyo (Boeki Kenkyu Shitsu). Altogether, Ishii commanded more than 10,000 personnel. When the Japanese Army occupied Singapore in 1942, another permanent EPWSD was added to the network (Unit 9420). Unit 731 itself had a proving ground in Anda (about 150 km northwest from Harbin) and five branches in Mudanjiang, Linkou, Sunwu, Hailar, and Dalian.
In addition, as a leader of army surgeons, Ishii had power over army hospitals in occupied cities in China. His network had also close connections with other biological warfare departments such as the Military Animals Epidemic Prevention Department (Gunju Boeki Shou) in Changchun, Manchuria (Unit 100), and institutions for chemical warfare such as the Army Sixth Technology Institute in Tokyo, the Army Narashino School in Narashino, in the suburbs of Tokyo, the Army Ninth Technology Institute (Noborito Institute) in Noborito, also in a Tokyo suburb, and Kwantung Army Chemical Department in Qiqihar in Manchuria (Unit 516).
Unit 731 probably moved to the new base in Pingfang in 1938. This was a 6 km2 complex of secret laboratory-factories surrounded by trenches and high-voltage electric wires [*4]. The whole district became a special military area, which meant anyone approaching without permission was to be shot by the guards. The main building had two special prisons in its inner yard, so that escapees could never go outside [*5]. The captives were called "maruta," which means "logs" in Japanese, and were identified only by numbers. At a war crimes trial conducted by Russian authorities at Khabarovsk in 1949, Surgeon Major General Kiyoshi Kawashima, who was the chief of a division of Unit 731, testified that the prisons usually held 200 to 300 captives, including some women and children, but that their maximum capacity was said to be 400 (Materials p. 257). These captives were sent to Unit 731 by the Military Police under the Special Transfer Procedure (Tokui Atsukai), a system the Japanese Army newly developed to supply human subjects. About 400-600 captives were sent to Unit 731 every year (ibid.). No one could get out alive. At Unit 731 from 1940 to 1945 at least 3,000 people were tortured to death (Materials p. 117). But this number does not include victims before 1940 or at other medical experimentation sites. Even prisoners of war of the Allied Powers may have been subjected to experiments by Unit 731 researchers at the camp in Mukden [now Shengyang] (Williams & Wallace 1989, Chap. 5; Harris 1994, Chap. 9).
Moreover, the activities of Unit 731 researchers were only a part of the medical atrocities committed by Imperial Japan. According to a large body of testimony, deadly experimentation was also performed in other permanent EPWSDs such as Units 1644 and 1855. U.S., Australian, and New Zealand prisoners of war were forced to participate in experiments by Surgeon Captain Einosuke Hirano of the 24th Field EPWSD in Rabaul, Papua New Guinea (Tanaka 1996).
In August 1945, when Russia declared war on Japan and advanced into Manchuria, Ishii's medical network suddenly collapsed. The Japanese Army immediately decided to withdraw all human experimentation units from China and to destroy evidence of medical atrocities. At Unit 731, all the still surviving captive subjects were killed, cremated, and cast into the Songhuajiang River. The main building with its special prisons were totally destroyed by artillery troops. Its surgeon officers, researchers, workers, and soldiers were hurriedly evacuated in specially chartered trains and ships. Most succeeded in escaping and returned to Japan. In Tokyo, the Epidemic Prevention Laboratory (Boeki Kenkyu Shitsu), the headquarters of Ishii's network, had already been destroyed by U.S. air raids in March and May 1945. But Ishii and his colleagues cunningly held onto precious medical data for biological warfare.
Although the United States occupied Japan after Japan's surrender on Aug. 15, 1945, General Headquarters/Supreme Command for the Allied Powers (GHQ/SCAP) did not investigate medical crimes. Instead, investigators from the U.S. Army Chemical Corps in Camp Detrick, Md., which oversaw U.S. chemical and biological warfare efforts, sought the biological warfare data that Ishii and his colleagues accumulated-so that the United States could catch up with the Soviet Union and other countries in biowar research and development (Ohta 1999, Tsuneishi 1994, Harris 1994, Regis 1999).
In order to get the data, the first investigator, Lieutenant Colonel Murray Sanders, asked General Douglas MacArthur and General Charles Willoughby, a close MacArthur aide and chief of counterintelligence, to promise Ishii and his researchers immunity from war crimes charges in October 1945. Ishi and his colleague gave some data, but they concealed the facts from Sanders and his successor, Veterinarian Lieutenant Colonel Arvo T. Thompson that these data were got by experimentation with human subjects [*6]. The United States had not got evidence of the performance of deadly human experiments until 1947.
Early in January 1947, the Soviet Union sought the extradition of Ishii and his researchers for investigation of their experiments, which the Soviets had learned about from captured officers and soldiers of Ishii's network. The Soviets also wanted the biowar data and threatened that if the United States monopolized the information, Russia would reveal the Japanese medical atrocities at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East-the so-called Tokyo Tribunal, which conducted the war crimes trial of top Japanese leaders in 1946-1948. The United States dismissed this threat but reinvestigated the Japanese doctors much more closely. The Russians not only failed to get the data but also had no chance to accuse Ishii and his researchers at Tokyo Tribunal because G-2 controlled it.
Then U.S. officials learned about the deadly human experimentation, and the immunity that they had granted to Ishii and others became a worrisome problem. In Nuremberg, Germany, the United States and its allies were harshly prosecuting Nazi doctors for their human experimentation. On the other hand, the United States secretly made deals with Imperial Japanese doctors and gave immunity to their performance of deadly human experimentation in order to monopolize the data for biological warfare. This behavior must be extremely inconsistent, and severely blamed by the international community when it is revealed. The GHQ/SCAP discussed the dilemma repeatedly with officials in Washington, and the United States finally concluded:
Information of Japanese BW [biological warfare] experiments will be of great value to the U.S. research program. . . . The value to the U.S. of Japanese BW data is of such importance to national security as to far outweigh the value accruing from "war crimes" prosecution. . . . The BW information obtained from Japanese sources should be retained in Intelligence channels and should not be employed as "war crimes" evidence. (State-War-Navy Coordinating Subcommittee for the Far East 1947)
This conclusion was based on close examination of the data that was finally provided by Ishii and his colleagues. The last investigator, Edwin V. Hill, reported to the Chief of the U.S. Army Chemical Corps as follows [*7]:
Evidence gathered in this investigation has greatly supplemented and amplified previous aspects of this field. It represents data which have been obtained by Japanese scientists at the expenditure of many millions of dollars and years of work. Information has accrued with respect to human susceptibility to these diseases as indicated by specific infections doses of bacteria. Such information could not be obtained in our own laboratories because of scruples attached to human experimentation. These data were secured with a total outlay of \250,000 to date, a mere pittance by comparison with the actual cost of the studies. (Hill 1947)
Thus, most officers and researchers involved in Japan's human experimentation program, including Ishii himself were never accused. Ishii died in peace of laryngeal cancer in 1959, at the age of 67. Many army surgeon officers and researchers gained positions in medical schools, national institutes, or hospitals. Some practiced in their own clinics, some others established pharmaceutical companies (See Willams & Wallace 1989, Chap. 17).
Although failing to get custody of Ishii or access to his data, the Soviet Union brought 12 captured officers and soldiers to trial before an open military tribunal at Khavarovsk in December 1949, commonly called the Khavarovsk Trial (Materials 1950). The accused included the Captain General of the Kwantung Army, Otozo Yamada, six army surgeon officers, and two veterinarian officers. Six of the accused were from Unit 731 and two from Unit 100. They all were sentenced to confinements in a labor correction camp for 2 to 25 years according to each crime, but returned to Japan by 1956 when the Soviet Union and Japan resumed diplomatic relations. The Russians intended to spread the news of the medical atrocities worldwide, but because the prosecutors, lawyers, and judges were all Russians, and there were no reporters from abroad, the trial drew only a little attention. The United States succeeded in branding it as communist propaganda. The People's Republic of China also tried Japanese war criminals before military tribunals in 1956, but among the researchers of Ishii's network only one surgeon officer was included. None of these defendants received a death sentence, and all returned to Japan by 1964, probably because China placed a higher priority on returning to the international community than to punishing war criminals.
I define medical massacre or atrocity as mass murder performed by medical doctors in the name of medicine. Those performed by Imperial Japanese doctors can be classified into three categories:
1. Research (experimentations with human subjects)
2. Training (of army surgeons)
3. Biological warfare maneuvers
Here I describe only a few examples with documentation in each categories.
The deadly research by Japanese doctors can be classified into three categories:
1) Explicating Diseases (Acquisition of Scientific Knowledge)
2) Development of Therapies
3) Development of Weapons
Doctors in Ishii's network performed experiments on captives and killed them in order to gain new scientific knowledge. There were two major kinds of research. One was bacteriological studies, including intentional infection in order to observe how the disease occurs and proceeds and to search for its pathogen. Another was physiological studies, including observation of the body's reaction to artificially caused conditions such as an extremely low temperature environment, low pressure such as that experienced at high altitudes, salt overdose, drinking only distilled water, and intravenous air injection. Anthropological-anatomical studies with "fresh human brain" were also performed at Manchuria Medical University.
Shiro Kasahara, a researcher at Kitasato Institute in Tokyo, worked for Unit 731 for several years. In 1944 he, Surgeon General Masaji Kitano, who was Commander of Unit 731 from August 1942 to March 1945, and others published a paper on identification of the pathogen of epidemic hemorrhagic fever, the etiology of which was then still unknown. It reads:
We made an emulsion with 203 ground-up North Manchuria mites and salt water, and injected it into the thigh of an ape hypodermically. This first ape became feverish with a temperature of 39.4 degrees Celsius on the 19th day after injection and moderately infected. Then we took blood of this feverish ape and injected it into the second ape, which became feverish and produced protein in its urine. Typical epidemic hemorrhagic kidney was found at its autopsy. . . .Epidemic hemorrhagic kidney was never found at autopsy in the most feverish period, . . . But kidney, liver, and spleen of this period are most infective. (Kasahara et al. 1944, p. 3)
This means they vivisected the "ape," because in order for surgeons to "autopsy in the most feverish period" the subject needs to be alive. Moreover, "the ape" must have been a human being, because the normal temperature of an ape is higher than that of a human being; 39.4 degrees Celsius is normal for an ape. In another paper, Kasahara and his colleagues noted that apes do not become feverish from this disease. So it is clear that they infected human subjects and vivisected them (Tsuneishi 1981). Kasahara himself confessed later that he and his colleagues performed deadly experiments (Williams & Wallace 1989, pp. 39-40).
Extensive data regarding the minimum infectious dose for 50% of subjects (MID50) of various human diseases-information that was important for development of biological weapons-were described in a U.S. investigator's report (Fell 1947). Japanese researchers artificially infected human subjects to learn the MID50 of anthrax, plague, typhoid, paratyphoid A and B, dysentery, cholera, and glanders. Some of them were not necessarily fatal, but many of these subjects were probably died of these experiments.
Hisato Yoshimura was a lecturer at Kyoto Imperial University Medical School when his head professor ordered him to go to Unit 731 in 1938. He stayed there until its collapse in 1945 and used captives in his studies of frostbite. At the Khabarovsk Trial, many officers and soldiers testified about the cruelty of Yoshimura's experiments. Yoshimura himself gave a lecture on his frostbite studies in Harbin in 1941, although he said nothing about cruel experiments (Yoshimura 1941). After the war, he and his colleagues published three papers in Japanese medical journals-in English-reporting part of the studies (Yoshimura & IIda 1950-51, Yoshimura & IIda 1951-52, Yoshimura, IIda & Koishi 1951-52). We know that these concern their studies at Unit 731, because they themselves wrote at the end of these papers that those outlines were read at the 21st and 22nd annual meetings of Japanese Physiological Society in 1942-43. They wrote, "The experiments were made on about 100 male subjects (laboratory workers, students, soldiers and laborers) . . ." (Yoshimura & IIda 1950-51, p. 149). Women, children, and even a baby were included as subjects:
The temperature reaction in ice water was examined on about 100 Chinese coolies from 15 to 74 years old and on about 20 Chinese pupils of 7 to 14 years. (Yoshimura & IIda 1951-52, pp. 177-178)
Though detailed studies could not be attained on children below 6 years of age, some observations were carried out on a baby. . . .[T]he reaction was detected even on the 3rd day after birth, and it increased rapidly with the lapse of days until at last it was nearly fixed after a month or so. . . . The reactivity of the female subject was a little lower than the male's in adult age, while they were nearly the same with each other in childhood. (Yoshimura & IIda 1951-52, pp. 178-179)
Frostbite experiments with Chinese captives were performed elsewhere than Unit 731. Surgeon Major Kazuharu Tanimura of Datong Army Hospital organized a detachment and went on an expedition into Inner Mongolia from Jan. 31 to Feb. 11 of 1941 to study frostbite, field surgeries, hemostatis, blood transfusion, and other procedures (Toki Eisei Kenkyuhan 1941) [*8]. Its report was found in a bibliopole in Tokyo and published as a reprint in 1995 [*9]. He took eight "living bodies"-male Chinese captives-as "material" for experiments [*10, *11]. At dawn on Feb. 6, researchers performed frostbite experiments on six subjects in various conditions such as wearing wet socks or gloves, drunk, hungry, and having atropine [*12]. Their , describes the result precisely with sketches and photographs (ibid.) [*13]. These eight subjects were also used in other experiments and operations, and finally were shot or vivisected to death. The report includes even the names of the subjects, direction for their confinement, a log of killing, the program of their memorial service, and Tanimura's condolence (ibid.) [*14, *15].
Doctors of the Department of Anatomy of Manchuria Medical University performed anthropological-anatomical studies with specimens of seemingly vivisected Chinese brain. According to an accusation by a Chinese assistant at the department, Zhang Buqing, there were about five vivisections from the Autumn of 1942 to the Spring of 1943. About 25 male captives were killed. (Chinese Central Archive et al. Seitai Kaibo, pp. 19-22). The doctors prepared many brain tissue specimens from these subjects, which have been found in China Medical University in Shengyang, the Chinese successor of equipments of Manchuria Medical University. The performance of vivisections was indicated because Zhang saw fresh blood on the floor of dissection room and the color of the corpses was fresh. The doctors published anatomical studies of the brain experiments with figures and photographs of these specimens in academic journals.
The second category of human experiments in Ishii's network was for development of therapies, including development of vaccines, surgical techniques both in hospital and on the battlefield, hemostasis, transfusion of blood or its substitute.
U.S. investigator Fell noted immunization experiments against anthrax, plague, and cholera (Fell 1947). Vaccines are necessary to save not only patients but also friendly soldiers in biological warfare.
Yoshio Shinozuka, a former junior assistant of Unit 731 with his birth name Yoshio Tamura, wrote in 2004:
Unit 731 was developing an envelope vaccine of plague. . . .
Karasawa Division, to which I belonged, also performed human experimentation and vivisection on five Chinese under the pretext of a virulence test of the germ.
First we collected blood from them and measured their immunity.
On the next day, we injected four kinds of plague vaccines to each of four subjects. No vaccine was given to one subject as control.
A week later, vaccines were given again.
A month later, we injected 1.0 cc liquid with the same number of plague germs in every subject. All five were infected with plague. . . .
The man that had no vaccine was infected first. Two or three days later he became feverish and pale. On the next day he was dying and his face grew darker.
He was still alive but the members of the Special Division, which administered the special prison of "Maruta" ["logs"] brought him naked on the stretcher to the dissection room where we awaited him. . . .
Lieutenant Hosoda auscultated his heart beat on his chest.
At the moment the auscultation finished, Surgeon Colonel Ohyama ordered "Let's begin!" . . . (Shinozuka & Takayanagi 2004, pp. 78-82)
Shinozuka's superiors vivisected the subject and took organs as specimens. Shinozuka testifies that even his friend, junior assistant Mitsuo Hirakawa, was vivisected when infected with plague (ibid, pp. 88-96).
Human vaccine experiments also were performed at Manchuria Medical University. Masaji Kitano, then a Professor of microbiology at that University and later the Commander of Unit 731, and his colleagues wrote in an unpublished paper found in China after the war, "In Linjiang area we performed human experiments with 10 volunteers and 3 condemned. . . . They were healthy men of 32-74 years old with no anamnesis of typhus and other acute fever." (Kitano et al.) Kitano and his colleagues injected Typhus bacteria into 11 subjects who had been vaccinated and into two condemned without vaccination as controls. The condemned subjects both developed fever and were vivisected on 11th and 19th day. Of the 11 who were vaccinated, five became feverish, and one was vivisected.
Deadly experimental surgeries were performed on captives to develop new surgical methods. At least two studies are documented. One set of experiments aimed at development hospital techniques was performed on U.S. Air Force crews in mainland Japan. The other experiments, to develop field surgical procedures, were performed on Chinese captives in Inner Mongolia.
From May to June of 1945, Professor Fukujiro Ishiyama of the First Department of Surgery, Apprentice Army Surgeon Taku Komori, and other Ishiyama's disciples performed experimental surgeries on, and killed, eight USAF crewmen at Kyushu Imperial University Medical School. The American airmen were captured when their B-29s were downed. The Japanese Western District Army decided to execute them and handed them over to Komori and Ishiyama. On May 17, 1945, Ishiyama removed a lung from two POWs. On May 22, Ishiyama and his team performed total gastric resection and heart surgery on a POW, and removed the gall bladder and half the of liver of another POW. On May 25, they performed trigeminal rhizotomy (severing the facial nerve roots) on a POW. Finally, on June 2 Ishiyama performed surgery on the mediastinum and removed the gall bladder of two of three POWs. The last POW had blood substitute transfusion mentioned later. All of eight POWs were killed during these operations (SCAP: Legal Section 1940-48).
GHQ/SCAP brought this case to the military tribunal in Yokohama after the war. Komori had already died; he had been badly injured in a U.S. air raid on Fukuoka in July 1945. Ishiyama hanged himself in prison in July 1946. On Aug. 28, 1948, the Yokohama tribunal condemned two army officers and three university doctors to death by hanging, and sentenced another officer and two doctors to life imprisonment. Five other officers, eight doctors, and a head nurse were ordered to hard labor. However, their sentences were reduced in 1950 when Korean War broke out, and no one was executed.
Surgeon Major Kazuharu Tanimura and his colleagues experimented with field surgery during their expedition to Inner Mongolia. They wrote in their log that on Feb. 4, 1941, they performed enteroanastomosis (intestinal bypass) on "living material No. 1." [*16] On the next day, "In order to follow up wounds, using living material No. 3, we amputated the left thigh, cut and sewed right thigh skin, and cut open the skin of the left hypogastrium. Treatments of dummy perforate gunshot wounds were performed on the left arm and right thigh of living material No. 7, and on the left waist and left chest of No. 6." [*17] On Feb. 6, they shot No. 8 to make perforate wounds, then performed transfusion and tracheostomy on him (Toki Eisei Kenkyuhan 1941).
Tanimura's detachment also performed various transfusion experiments. On Feb. 5, 1941, they wrote that subjects No. 1 and No. 3 had transfusion of blood and Ringer solution at room temperature. On Feb. 7 they transfused blood kept in thermos bottle, blood that had been frozen outside the tent and then been thawed, and sheep blood [*18, *19]. On Feb. 8, they transfused blood taken from the heart of corpse (Toki Eisei Kenkyuhan 1941, pp. 25-29).
At Kyushu Imperial University Medical School, sterilized and diluted brine as blood substitute was transfused to U.S. airmen in the experimental operations described above. On May 17, 1945, Professor Ishiyama and his aides transfused 2,000 cc of blood substitute into the first subject whose lung was removed. On June 2, they drew about 500 cc of blood from the right thigh artery of another POW and transfused blood substitute 300 cc. These subjects were vivisected and killed (SCAP: Legal Section 1940-48).
The third category was weapons development research. The aim of researchers in this category was to find the ways not to save but to kill people more effectively and certainly. Doctors in Ishii's medical network performed both biological and chemical weapon trials on human subjects and killed them.
US investigator Dr. N. H. Fell wrote on many biological weapon trials in his report. Of anthrax bomb trials he notes:
Full details and diagrams of the field trials are given. In most cases the human subjects were tied to stakes and protected with helmets and body armor. The bombs of various types were exploded either statically, or with time fuses after being dropped from aircraft. . . . The Japanese were not satisfied with the field trials with anthrax. However, in one trial with 15 subjects, 8 were killed as a result of wounds from the bombs, and 4 were infected by bomb fragments (3 of these 4 subjects died). In another trial with a more efficient bomb ("Uji"), 6 of 10 subjects developed a definite bacteremia, and 4 of these were considered to have been infected by the respiratory route; all four of these latter subjects died. However, these four subjects were only 25 meters from the nearest of the 9 bombs that were exploded in a volley. (Fell 1947)
This description coincides with testimony by Japanese officers and soldiers at the Khabarovsk Trial and the Chinese investigation. Of plague, Fell reported precisely (Fell 1947). Of glanders, Fell reports also about bomb trials (Fell 1947).
A report authored by unknown researcher in Unit 731 describes a large field human experiment of yperite gas--that is, mustard gas--from September 7th to 10th of 1940. Twenty subjects were divided into three groups and placed in combat emplacements, trenches, gazebos, and observatories. One group of subjects was clothed with Chinese underwear, no hat, and no mask, and were subjected to yperite gas as much as 1,800 field gun shots over 25 minutes. Another group was clothed in summer military uniform and shoes; three had masks and another three had no mask. They also were exposed to yperite gas as much as of 1,800 field gun shots. A third group was clothed in summer military uniform, three with masks and two without masks, and were exposed to as much as of 4,800 shots. Then their general symptoms and damage to skin, eye, respiratory organs, and digestive organs were observed at 4 hours, 24 hours, 2 days, 3 days, and 5 days after the shots. Injecting the blister fluid from one subject into another subject and analyses of blood and soil were also performed. Five subjects were forced to drink a solution of yperite and lewisite gas in water, with or without decontamination. The report describes conditions of every subject precisely without mentioning their aftermath (Kamo Butai).
Poison experiments were also performed at other EPWSDs. In 1993, Engineer Major Shigeo Ban of The Army 9th Technology Institute (Noborito Institute) confessed to performing poison experiments at Unit 1644 in Nanjing. Early in May 1941, the Army General Staff Corps ordered Ban and his eight colleagues to visit Unit 1644 to test the toxicity of a newly developed poison acetone cyanhydrin in human beings (Ban 2001, pp. 81-82).
At army hospitals, army surgeons performed many vivisections on Chinese captives with anesthesia. For example, these doctors performed appendectomies and tracheostomies on the prisoners, shot them and took bullets from their bodies, cut open their arms and legs and sewed up the skin around the wounds, and finally killed them. This was purportedly part of training newly assigned army surgeons how to treat wounded soldiers at the front lines. However, since the skill to prevent needless harm and death was not required, the main purpose seems to have been to desensitize surgeons, rather than to make them skillful.
Confessions by many of the surgeons involved are on record (Yoshikai 1981, Chinese Central Archive et al. 1989). At Datong Army Hospital in Datong, Shanxi in June probably of 1941 Surgeon Major Kazuharu Tanimura and Surgeon Lieutenant Rihei Miura conducted a three-day training program [*20]. Lectures in military surgery were given in the morning, and in the afternoon exercise surgeries such as angiorrhaphy, neurorrhaphy, thoracotomy, celiotomy, craniotomy, blood transfusion, various anesthetizations, appendectomy, and nephrectomy were performed serially on "six bodies of prepared materials" (Daido Rikugun Byoin). The trainees were army surgeon officers of the Army Medical College. Judging from confessions about similar cases, the "materials" probably were arrested Chinese resisters who probably were killed in these exercises.
Hundreds of confessions also testify to Imperial Japanese research into and use of biological warfare. Moreover, Japanese Army officers themselves wrote about biological warfare in their official records. According to these notes, at least three major attacks were carried out (Imoto).
Fifty-five years later, in August 1997, 180 family members of Chinese victims of the biological attacks filed a complaint in Tokyo District Court demanding an apology and compensation from the Japanese government. On Aug. 27, 2002, the court dismissed the complaint, ruling that individuals cannot sue a country for compensation for wartime sufferings. On July 19, 2005, Tokyo Higher Court dismissed it again on the same reason. But the courts acknowledged that biological warfare had been waged, because the Japanese government never argued but rather kept silent about it even in the court.
*Here is a book with marvelous pictures of people suffered from "rotten leg disease" published recently [Xiaofang L. Qixie Kongsu (Blood-Weeping Accusations: Records of Anthrax Victims). Beijing: Zhongyang Wenxian Chubanshe 2005]. I would circulate it among you so that everyone can see it. They are alleged victims of Japanese biological warfare with anthrax and glanders in Jinhua, Quzhou and other villages in Zhejiang and Jiangxi, which were attacked by Ishii's Units in the early 1940s. Though it has not been proved yet that the disease really caused by anthrax and glanders attacks by Japanese, they must have proper medical care, and more scientific studies into their symptoms and causes are surely to be performed.
If you are interested in this disease or want this book, please contact Ms. Wang Xuan (wangxuan@yahoo.co.jp). Her father came from Chongshan Village of Yiwu, Zhejiang, which was severely suffered from biological warfare by Ishii's Units. Now she lives in Japan and has become the leader of plaintiffs of the lawsuit mentioned above. She is also a translator of Chinese version of Sheldon Harris' book Factories of Death.
Long Version (with Chinese characters and Japanese texts. PDF, 960KB)
Asano T, Tsuneishi K. Kibyo--Ryukosei Syukketunetsu (Weird Disease--Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever). Tokyo: Shincho Sha 1985.
Ban S. Rikugun Noborito Kenkyujo no Shinjitsu (The Truth about Noborito Institute). Tokyo: Fuyo Shobo Shuppan 2001.
Beauchamp TL, Childress JF. Principles of Biomedical Ethics. 5th edition. New York: Oxford University Press 2001.
Chinese Central Archive et al. eds. Seitai Kaibo (Vivisection), Jintai Jikken (Human Experimentation), and Saikin Sakusen (Germ Warfare). Tokyo: Dobunkan 1991-1992. These three volumes are Japanese translation of Xijunzhan yu Duqizhan (Biological and Chemical Warfare). Beijing: Zhonghua Shuju (Chinese Printing Office) 1989.
Daido Rikugun Byoin (Datong Army Hopital). Chumogun Gun'i Shoko Gunjin Gekagaku Syugo Kyoiku Katei Hyo (A Program of A Group Education of Military Surgery for Army Surgeon Officers of the Occupation Forces in Mongolia). June 5-7 probably of 1941. Reprinted in Toki Eisei Kenkyuhan: Appendix.
Fell NH. Brief Summary of New Information About Japanese B. W. Activities. HHF/ars/3, 20 June 1947. Utah: Dugway Proving Ground, File No. 005. Reprinted in Kondo 2003: Disc 3.
Harris SH. Factories of Death: Japanese Biological Warfare, 1932-45, and the American Cover-Up. New York: Routledge 1994 (Revised edition 2002).
Hill EV. Summary Report on B. W. Investigations. 12 December 1947. Utah: Dugway Proving Ground, APO 500. Reprinted in Kondo 2003: Disc 6.
Ikeda N. Ketsuekigata no Futekigo Yuketsu no Kiken (Risk of Different Blood Type Transfusion). Osaka Hoken'i Shimbun (Newspaper for Practitioner in Osaka) January 21, 1966.
Ikeda N. Ryukosei Syukketsunetsu no Ryukogakuteki Chosa Kenkyu (Epidemiological Studies of Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever). Nihon Densenbyo Gakkai Zasshi (The Journal of the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases) 1967; 41(9): 337-347.
Ikeda N. Ryukosei Syukketsunetsu no Shirami, Nomi ni yoru Kansen Jikken (Experimental Studies of Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever: Pediculus Vestimenti and Xenopsylla Chepis as Suspected Vectors of the Disease). Nihon Densenbyo Gakkai Zasshi (The Journal of the Japanese Association for Infectious Diseases) 1968; 42(5): 125-130.
Ikeda N, Araki S. Hashofu Dokuso narabini Gaho Sesshuji ni okeru Kin Chronaxie ni tsuite (Muscle Chronaxie of Patients Injected with Toxin and Spore of Tetanus). Date unknown. Reprinted in Tanaka A, Matsumura T. eds. 731 Butai Sakusei Shiryo (Documents by Unit 731). Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan 1991: 45-57.
Imoto K. Gyomu Nisshi (Opperation Log). Collection of the Military Archives, Japan Defense Agency. Cited by Yoshimi Y, Iko T. Nihon No Saikinsen (Japanese Biological Warfare). Senso Sekinin Kenkyu (Studies in Responsibility for War) December 1993; 2: 8-29; and the same authors, 731 Butai To Tenno--Rikugun Chuo (Unit 731 and the Emperor--Army Leaders). Tokyo: Iwanami Syoten 1995.
Kamo Butai (Kamo Unit). Kiidan Shageki ni yoru Hifu Shogai narabini Ippan Rinshoteki Shojo Kansatsu (An Observation of Skin Injuries and General Clinical Symptoms occurred by Shots of Yperite Shell). Date unknown. Reprinted in Tanaka A, Matsumura T eds. 731 Butai Sakusei Shiryo (Documents by Unit 731). Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan 1991: 1-42.
Kasahara S, Kitano M et al. Ryukosei Syukketsunetsu no Byogentai no Kettei (Identification of the Pathogen of Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever). Nihon Byori Gakkai Kaishi (Japanese Journal of Pathology) 1944; 34(1-2): 3-5.
Kinbara S. Rikugun Gyomu Nisshi Tekiroku (Summary of the Army Opperation Log). Collection of the Military Archives, Japan Defense Agency. Cited by Yoshimi Y, Iko T. Nihon No Saikinsen (Japanese Biological Warfare). Senso Sekinin Kenkyu (Studies in Responsibility for War) December 1993; 2: 8-29.
Kitano M, Iwata S, Watanabe S. Hasshin Typhus no Yobosesshu ni kansuru Kenkyu: Yo ra no Chosei seru Hasshin Typhus Vaccine no Jintai Kansen Bogyoryoku Shiken (A Study of Vaccination of Typhus: On A Immunity Test of Our Typhus Vaccine). Unpublished. Its abridged Chinese translation is in Yang Y, Xin P eds. Xijunzhan (Biological Warfare). Harbin: Heilongjiangxing Renmin Chubanshe (Heilongjiang Province People's Press) 2002: 333-346.
Kondo S. eds. 731 Butai Saikinsen Shiryo Shusei (Japanese Biological Warfare; Unit 731: Official Declassified Records). CD-ROM 8 Vols. Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobo 2003.
Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House 1950.
Morimura S. Akuma no Hoshoku (Devils' Gluttony). Tokyo: Kobunsha 1981 (new edition Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten 1983).
Ohta M. 731 Menseki no Keifu (The Pedigree of 731 Immunity). Tokyo: Nihon Hyoronsha 1999.
Regis E. The Biology of Doom: The History of America's Secret Germ Warfare Project. New York: Henry Holt and Company 1999.
Rikugun Gun'i Gakko Boeki Kenkyu Hokoku (Bulletin of the Epidemic Prevension Laboratory in the Army Medical College). Tokyo: Rikugun Gun'i Gakko Boeki Kenkyu Shitsu. Its Dai 2 Bu (Part 2) has been found in the U.S. Library of Congress and reprinted by Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan 2004-2005, 8 vols.
State-War-Navy Coordinating Subcommittee for the Far East. Interrogation of Certain Japanese by Russian Prosecutor. Enclosure. SFE 188/2, 1 August 1947. Reference: SWNCC 351/2/D. NARA, Record Group 165, Entry 468, Box 428. Reprinted in Kondo 2003: Disc 3.
SCAP: Legal Section: ADM. DIV. MISC. File. Trial Case #394: Record of Trial in the Case of United States vs. Kajuro Aihara. 1940-1948. NARA, Record Group 331, Stack Area 290, Row 11, Compartment 34, Shelf 4, Boxes 1331-1332.
Shinozuka Y, Michiko T. Nihon nimo Senso ga Atta: 731 Butai Moto Shonen Taiin no Kokuhaku (There Was A War in Japan: A Confession of A Former Junior Assistant of Unit 731). Tokyo: Shin Nihon Shuppansha 2004.
Suzuki N, Terui S, Takenaka Y, Ohno K, Juh S. Histological study of the Chinese brain. Part 1. On the cytoarchitectural structure of the regio frontalis. Arbeiten aus dem Anatomischen Institut der Kaiserlich-Japanishen Universtitat zu Sendai 1942; 25: 139-186.
Takasugi S. Nippon no Auschwitz wo Otte (Searching for Japanese Auschwitz). Tokyo: Kyoiku Shiryo Shuppankai 1984.
Takidani J. Satsuriku Kosho--731 Butai (Murderous Factory Unit 731). Tokyo: Niimori Shobo 1989.
Tanaka A, Matsumura T. eds. 731 Butai Sakusei Shiryo (Documents Made by Unit 731). Tokyo: Fuji Shuppan 1991.
Tanaka Y. Japanese Biological Warfare Plans and Experiments on POWs. In: Tanaka Y. Hidden Horrors: Japanese War Crimes in World War II. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press 1996: 135-165.
Tasaki K. Sokei Rimpa Nikugasyu Sho ("N. F." Byo) no Kenkyu (Dai 1 Hou) (A Study of Lympho Granuloma ("N. F. Disease"), Part 1). Manshu Igaku Zasshi (Manchuria Medical Journal) 1936; 24: 785-804.
Toki Eisei Kenkyuhan (The Detachment for Hygiene Studies in Winter). Chumougun Toki Eisei Kenkyu Seiseki (The Report of Hygiene Studies in Winter by the Occupation Forces in Mongolia). March 1941. Reprinted by Tokyo: Gendai Syokan 1995.
Tsuchiya T. In the Shadow of the Past Atrocities: Research Ethics with Human Subjects in Contemporary Japan. Eubios Journal of Asian and International Bioethics 2003; 13 (3): 100-101. http://www2.unescobkk.org/eubios/EJ133/ej133f.htm
Tsuneishi K. Kieta Saikinsen Butai (The Germ Warfare Unit Disappeard). Tokyo: Kaimeisha 1981 (expanded version 1989. pocket edition Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo 1993).
Tsuneishi K. Hone Wa Kokuhatsu Suru (The Bones Are Accusing). Tokyo: Kaimeisha 1992.
Tsuneishi K. Igakusha Tachi no Soshiki Hanzai (The Conspiracy of Medical Researchers). Tokyo: Asahi Shimbun Sha 1994 (reprinted in Asahi Bunko 1999).
Tsuneishi K. 731 Butai (Unit 731). Tokyo: Kodansha 1995.
Tsuneishi K. Boryaku no Crossroad (Crossroads of Stratagems). Tokyo: Nihon Hyoron Sha 2002.
Williams P, Wallace D. Unit 731: Japan's Secret Biological Warfare in World War II. New York: The Free Press 1989.
Yoshikai N. Kesenai Kioku: Yuasa Gun'i Seitaikaibo no Kiroku (Unforgettable Memory: A Document of Army Surgion Yuasa's Vivisection). Tokyo: Nitchu Shuppan 1981 (new expanded edition 1996).
Yoshimura H. Tosho ni Tsuite (On Frostbite). The manuscript of the special lecture at the 15th Meeting of the Harbin Branch of Manchu Medical Society, October 26, 1941. Reprinted in Tanaka & Matsumura 1991: 225-288.
Yoshimura H, Iida T. Studies on the Reactivity of Skin Vessels to Extreme Cold. Part 1. A Point Test on the Resistance against Frost Bite. The Japanese Journal of Physiology 1950-1951; 1: 147-159.
Yoshimura H, Iida T. Studies on the Reactivity of Skin Vessels to Extreme Cold. Part 2. Factors Governing the Individual Difference of the Reactivity, or the Resistance against Frost Bite. The Japanese Journal of Physiology 1951-1952; 2: 177-185.
Yoshimura H, Iida T, Koishi H. Studies on the Reactivity of Skin Vessels to Extreme Cold. Part 3. Effects of Diets on the Reactivity of Skin Vessels to Cold. The Japanese Journal of Physiology 1951-1952; 2: 310-315.