Drea, Edward (2006). Researching Japanese War Crimes (PDF). National Archives and Records Administration for the Nazi Warcrimes and Japanese Imperial Government Records Interagency Working Group. p.35. Thousands of these still-dangerous bombs remain in the Chinese countryside today, Tam says. Some people still suffer from the Japanese "dirty" bombs. The best moments are when Yang and co-author, Yue-Him Tam, a professor of history at Macalester College in Minnesota, reveal the stories of ordinary people who suffered. In 1934, some 30 prisoners staged a breakout of the unit. They carry an interview with a villager who still remembered he and his brother desperately trying to smash the fetters as the Japanese patrols drew closer; some were killed others, escaped to join the resistance. Later, the Japanese took especially virulent forms of the plague and other pathogens that were developed at Unit 731, put them in canisters and dropped them on nearby towns to see if their weapons would work. They did. Infection of venereal disease by injection was abandoned, and the researchers started forcing the prisoners into sexual acts with each other. Four or five unit members, dressed in white laboratory clothing completely covering the body with only eyes and mouth visible, rest covered, handled the tests. A male and female, one infected with syphilis, would be brought together in a cell and forced into sex with each other. It was made clear that anyone resisting would be shot. [70]

Nozaki, Yoshiko (2000). Textbook controversy and the production of public truth: Japanese education, nationalism, and Saburo Ienaga's court challenges. University of Wisconsin–Madison. pp.300, 381. General Yoshijiro Umezu, who served as the Army’s chief of staff, was a member of the elite war cabinet that held the reins of power in Japan from April 1945 until it surrendered to Allied forces on September 2, 1945. According to Lt. Gen. Kajitsuka Ryuji of the Japanese Medical Service and former Chief of the Medical Administration for the massive Kwantung Army (located in Manchuria), Ishii was given permission to begin the Ping Fang experiment in 1936 by “command of the Emperor.” In 1936, Emperor Hirohito issued a decree authorizing the expansion of the unit and its integration into the Kwantung Army as the Epidemic Prevention Department. [16] It was divided at that time into the "Ishii Unit" and "Wakamatsu Unit", with a base in Xinjing. From August1940 on, the units were known collectively as the "Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army" or "Unit731" short. [17]Inside Japan's wartime factory of death". Ben Hills. 2013-11-24. Archived from the original on 2019-05-31 . Retrieved 2019-05-31.

The recreated office of camp commander, Ishii Shiro, in the Japanese Army concentration camp, 731. Photo: Supplied/Jeremy Rees After World WarII, the Office of Special Investigations created a watchlist of suspected Axis collaborators and persecutors who are banned from entering the United States. While they have added over 60,000names to the watchlist, they have only been able to identify under 100 Japanese participants. In a 1998 correspondence letter between the DOJ and Rabbi Abraham Cooper, Eli Rosenbaum, director of OSI, stated that this was due to two factors: Japan started its biological weapons program in the 1930s, partly because the use of biological weapons was banned in interstate conflicts by the Geneva Protocol of 1925; they reasoned that the ban verified its effectiveness as a weapon. [1] Japan's occupation of Manchuria began in 1931 after the Japanese invasion of Manchuria. [11] Japan decided to build Unit 731 in Manchuria because the occupation not only gave the Japanese an advantage of separating the research station from their island, but also gave them access to as many Chinese individuals as they wanted for use as test subjects. [11] They viewed the Chinese as no-cost assets, and hoped this would give them a competitive advantage in biological warfare. [11] Not all test subjects were Chinese, with many other nationalities being included too. [1]

Unit 731 ( Japanese: ７３１部隊, Hepburn: Nana-san-ichi Butai ), [note 1] short for Manshu Detachment731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment [3] :198 and the Ishii Unit, [5] was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. It killed an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 people. It was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China) and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia. a b Barenblatt, Daniel. A Plague Upon Humanity: the Secret Genocide of Axis Japan's Germ Warfare Operation, HarperCollins, 2004. ISBN 0060186259. Endicott, Stephen and Hagerman, Edward. The United States and Biological Warfare: Secrets from the Early Cold War and Korea, Indiana University Press, 1999. ISBN 0253334721.

Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: ‘What would happen if we did such and such?’ What medical purpose was served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play." Japanese Medical Atrocities in World War II". www.vcn.bc.ca. Archived from the original on 2019-06-18 . Retrieved 2019-05-10.

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A doctor at Ping Fang testified to a time when he was working on a pregnant female victim who awoke from anesthesia while being vivisected. The woman said, “It’s all right to kill me, but please spare my child’s life.” It is likely that more than one mother voiced, as a last wish on the vivisection table, the wish to let her child live. None ever did. The researchers wanted their data.

Vanderbrook, Alan Jay (2013). Imperial Japan's Human Experiments Before And During World War Two (MA thesis). University of Central Florida. Archived from the original on 2018-01-17 . Retrieved 2017-10-27.ReGenesis episode "Let it burn" (2007). Outbreaks of anthrax and glanders are traced to World WarII Japan. The remains of Unit 731 concentration camp operated by the occupying Japanese wartime army in Harbin, China. Photo: Supplied/Jeremy Rees Japan’s medical institutions enabled the work of Unit 731 by supplying Dr. Ishii with top Japanese scientists and physicians who would be labeled Hikokumin (traitors) if they refused to take part. Most medical professionals saw their work as noble service to the Emperor; the fact that they were killing non-Japanese meant nothing to them.