Experiments Performed at Unit 731
"When I first entered Unit 731, I had no idea it was that kind of unit. I thought it was to help the people of China by providing clean water...When I came to the Unit 731 Exhibition the first time, I was shocked... I had heard rumors about the dissections, and I wondered if those things really happened. I thought that if they had really happened, they were wretched acts. But, personally, I feel no shame. I thought I was really doing a good thing."
~Anonymous Hygiene Specialist at Unit 731
There were many unthinkable experiments practiced at Unit 731. Subjects that were chosen for these experiments were called "marutas" or "logs." Some of the first experiments performed by Ishii involved anthrax, glanders, and the bubonic plague. Plague infected fleas were used to produce the bacteria that was then injected into chosen prisoners. It did not take long for the disease to take affect. The marutas were eventually dissected while alive.
"... Bodies with no heads, with no feet, with swollen bellies. That was from water torture. They force water into the body to swell up the belly."
~Anonymous Hygiene Specialist at Unit 731
~Anonymous Hygiene Specialist at Unit 731
Gas experiments were common at Unit 731. Experiments with electricity were also common. Starting out with a small dose, some marutas were slowly roasted to death with continuous voltages. Some only received a small dose of it, but they were eventually killed with poison injections.
"The enemy ... took our countrymen as prisoners and used them for drug experiments. They would inject various types of toxic bacteria into their bodies, and then perform experiments on how they reacted ... this was an act of barbarism by our enemy."
~David N. Sutton, American counsel
~David N. Sutton, American counsel
"We removed some of the organs and amputated legs and arms. Two of the victims were young women, 18 or 19 years old. I hesitate to say it but we opened up their wombs to show the younger soldiers. They knew very little about women - it was sex education."
~Unit 731 Doctor
"I cut him open from the chest to the stomach and he screamed terribly and his face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound, he was screaming so horribly. But then finally he stopped. This was all in a day's work for the surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time."
~ Anonymous Unit 731 Medical Assistant
~ Anonymous Unit 731 Medical Assistant
The scientists of Unit 731 were very interested in frostbite experiments. They would subject naked men and women to sub-freezing temperatures. They were then "defrosted" by many different experimental techniques. They knew the frostbite was complete when "frozen arms, ... struck with a short stick, emitted a sound resembling that which a board gives when it is struck." (Anonymous Japanese Officer)
"The fellow knew that it was over for him and so he didn't struggle when they led him into the room and tied him down. But when I picked up the scalpel, that's when he began screaming."
~ Anonymous Unit 731 Medical Assistant
"The Chinese had a saying about us, that Japan had a 'three-way complete policy: burned completely, killed completely, and pillaged completely.' Yet, when we were doing those things, we had no sense of guilt or of doing anything wrong. It was for the emperor - for the country!"
~Captain Kojima Takeo, Japanese Imperial Army
~Captain Kojima Takeo, Japanese Imperial Army
Some marutas were hung upside down to determine how long it took for them to choke to death. Others were injected with air to test for embolisms. Others still had horse urine injected into their kidneys. There were numerous inhumane experiments that were performed at Unit 731.
"'They're burning again today,' he said to me.
'Burning what?' I asked.
'Logs.'
'But if there are no trees around, how come there are logs to burn?' I wondered.
Then he... told me that it was corpses that were making the smoke."
~Anonymous Youth Corps Member at Unit 731
"In 1944, when Japan was nearing defeat, Tokyo's military planners seized on a remarkable way to hit back at the American heartland: they launched huge balloons that rode the prevailing winds to the continental United States. Although the American Government censored reports at the time, some 200 balloons landed in Western states, and bombs carried by the balloons killed a woman in Montana and six people in Oregon. Half a century later, there is evidence that it could have been far worse; some Japanese generals proposed loading the balloons with weapons of biological warfare, to create epidemics of plague or anthrax in the United States."
~Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
~Nicholas Kristof, New York Times
"Without a shadow of doubt, Ishii's crimes had far exceeded those committed by the infamous Nazi doctor Josef Mengele for conducting human experiments..."
~ Harry Wood
~ Harry Wood