warning the following content may be disturbing for some viewers as it sheds light on a rarely discussed dark chapter in Japanese history 1938 a mild summer day in China on the grounds of Unit 731 professors scientists and Military doctors are conducting important research here now the work day is coming to an end the adults are drinking beer by the pool of the facility children are playing T of War it's a beautiful sunset the people next door in the barracks are unaware of this for them there is no end to the day no yesterday today or
tomorrow they don't know if it's day or night they know only one thing a cruel death awaits [Music] the first world war ended nearly 10 years ago claiming 17 Million Lives Japan fought alongside the Allies as a result of their Victory Japan's economy is now thriving the empire under Emperor Tao is a member of the League of Nations Japan enjoys good international relations participating in conferences on disarmament and arms control all in the name of preserving peace in Geneva the seed of the League of Nations Japan signs a historic protocol the high Contracting parties so
far as they are not already parties to treaties prohibiting such use accept this prohibition agree to extend this prohibition to the use of bacteriological methods of warfare and agree to be bound as between themselves according to the terms of this declaration the prohibition of these weapons is a reaction to an incident in the first world war for the first time German troops systematically used poison gas as chemical weapons the result was so horrific that the 36 founding signers decided such a thing must never happen again about 9,600 km away from Switzerland a 33-year-old military doctor
in Japan reads a report on the Geneva protocol he is electrified and sees it as confirmation of a theory he has been nurturing for some time biological weapons must hold enormous potential if they are so reviled and he comes to a conclusion quite different from that of the signatories in Geneva if the prospect of germ warfare created such dread Japan must do everything in its power to create the most virulent germ weapons as well as effective methods for destroying wartime enemies with lethal diseases this military doctor named ishi Shiro will devote his entire life to
researching methods of biological warfare in this endeavor he will be aided by around 20,000 employees and an estimated 300,000 people will fall victim to Japan's bioweapons program ishi is regarded as very intelligent if not even a genius at the same time he is described as ruthless extremely arrogant and ambitious someone who would stop at nothing to advance his career when he pitches his idea to the military leadership his Ultra nationalist stance becomes evident what if enemy States attack us with biological weapons then we would be helpless and we can take advantage of new weapons technology
offensively what if we Face a shortage of Iron and Steel during an economic crisis we can kill two birds with one stone biological warfare saves money and resources while creating an invaluable killing potential in 1928 isi likely on behalf of the Army embarks on a 2-year World Tour he aims to collect research findings on biological warfare when he returns to Japan in 1930 the political landcape in the country has changed under the new emperor Hirohito Ultra right politicians are in power Japan's economy has been severely hit by the global economic crisis in these circumstances isi's
Ambitions find fertile ground he wants to create an entirely new institution The Institute for epidemic prevention once again he pitches his idea to the war Ministry claiming that other countries are secretly developing biological weapons too that's what he supposedly discovered during his world tour now the war minister himself becomes interested in ishi's research the government provides them with the necessary resources they revived Japan's chemical warfare Unit A Remnant from World War I in 1932 ishi's Institute begins its work ishi and his team experiment with the pathogens for glanders CA tifo gas Gang Green Anthrax and
plague isi is particularly interested in the L to him the plague is one of the most dangerous potential bacterial weapons during his travels he studied the effects of the plague in Europe from the 14th to the 17th century the institute's name conceals the second part of isi's research there are two types of bacteriological warfare research A and B A is assault research and B is defense research vaccine research is of the B type and this can be done in Japan however a type research can be done abroad the problem with biological weapons is that pathogens
don't distinguish between friend and foe an outof control epidemic would endanger millions of people in Tokyo and isi is convinced to develop the perfect biological weapon a bit of lab research is not enough he wants to test his developments on a large scale regularly extensively on human subjects the political climate is perfect for isi's plans Japan's new military leaders want to expand they are more aggressive than their predecessors some of them aim to occupy Manchuria the Chinese region is militarily weak and Rich in resources in 1931 Japan makes a move and actually occupies the region
a year later they established a puppet state of manchukuo the invasion of Manchuria is considered Japan's most decisive early step on the road toward totalitarian Fascism and War in ishi's eyes the now Japanese colony is perfect for his work potential accidents wouldn't endanger the Japanese population vast sparsely populated areas guarantee secrecy and then they are the inhabitants themselves human subjects for his experiments ideal conditions for a type investigations into biological assault thus isi requests the relocation of his Institute to manua in order to tell this story in depth we poured over books analyzed documents and
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doesn't take much to be sent there by the Japanese colonial power soon the prison cells are filled with Bandits Gia Fighters partisans Communists disant and intellectuals suspicion that a person might be anti-japanese minded is enough they become part of the a type research human experiments with biological weapons how many prisoners were killed is unknown to this day the average life expectancy of the prisoners is about 1 month Japan tries to keep the activities at The Fortress strictly Secret in Tokyo the government knows exactly about what's happening in the complex none of the high ranking politicians
speak out against the killings or as the scientists there call it sacrificing human beings but before isi and his team can really get going The beij Fortress becomes a security risk a group of prisoners manages to escape and Ammunition Depot is blown up probably by a group of communist resistance Fighters the project could be exposed isi orders The Fortress to be destroyed to cover up any possible traces he presses the Japanese government the new site for his research should be even bigger even more remote no one should be able to escape in 1936 Emperor Hirohito
personally issues a decree isi's Institute is to expand it becomes part of the quantong army creating a large network of locations the headquarters are built in pingfang the unit stationed there is given the number 731 a code name that will go down in history ping Fang is in a remote area but still near the South maurion Railway line the new tracks leading to pingfang officially don't exist the secret trains that run there have a single purpose transporting supplies human ones included about 150 buildings are erected over 6 Square km a power plant administrative offices prisons
Stables green houses autopsy rooms there's even an Airfield for the unit's air fleet trenches line the perimeter of the Zone electric fences and watchtowers secure the area the airspace above is a no fly zone isi runs to headquarters he's in charge of 3 and a half thousand employees he has recruited many of Japan's best medical researchers they are all focused on one question how can plague chalera Anthrax and so many more diseases be weaponized for War as staff bringing a middle-aged prisoner to a room he's quiet he knows it's over for him he's stripped naked
and tied to the bed but when the medical assistant picks up es scalpel The Prisoner finally starts screaming I cut him open from his chest to his stomach and he screamed terribly his face Twisted in agony the sound was unimaginable he screamed so horribly but finally he stopped this was just another day for the surgeons but it really stuck with me because it was my first time this Chinese prisoner has been deliberately infected Ed with the plague and is now being dissected alive the researchers want to see how the plague ravages his internal organs anesthesia
isn't used as it could interfere with the results between 1936 and 1945 at least 3,000 people are murdered in experiments like this one though the actual number is likely much higher as the Pacific War breaks out and Japan later attacks Pearl haror Unit 731 carries on undeterred since the unit is now officially part of the army they receive new orders push the human body to extreme conditions to see how it reacts to study frostbite prisoners are forced to stand outside barefoot specific body parts are submerged in water to freeze them prisoners are locked in pressure
Chambers to test how much pressure the human body can withstand until their eyes pop out of their skulls women were forced to become pregnant to study how diseases like syphilis transmit from mother to child and How likely the child is to survive even though a large number of babies were born in captivity in ping Fang most likely none survived we could go on forever the list of unspeakable unimaginable atrocities is so unbearably long in the labs there are large 2m tanks where human bodies float in form Malahide cut in half from head to toe in
other jars body parts are stored all neatly labeled and documented feet hands heads organs next door the bioweapon production is in full swing division 4 of Unit 731 produces one ton of color bacteria 500 kg of Anthrax and 700 kg of typhus bacteria per month they develop bioweapon bombs and test them in the field on a test site prisoners are tie two stakes and bombarded with weapons ples spray parts of occupied zones with bacterial cultures and bombs filled with infected fleas are dropped on areas the unit wants to know how many people will die troops
contaminate Wells and water sources with chera and typhus at its peak the unit's bacterial production could Wipe Out the entire world population multiple times over after long years of War World War II is finally drawing to a close the Allies control most of the Pacific Japan's major allies Italy and Germany have long since surrendered Japan is the only ex's power still fighting on August 6 and on August 9 1945 the US drops atomic bombs on Hiroshima and nagazaki pushing Japan towards surrender now something stirs and ping Fang in a panic Unit 731 scrambles to destroy
all evidence of their crimes their research can't be allowed to fall into Soviet hands they gassed the remaining prisoners and shoot the forced laborers the remains of bodies are thrown into a nearby River on August 10 1945 5 days before Japan's surrender the unit blows up all its buildings infected test animals are released into the wild causing major epidemics in the region around 30 ,000 people die as a result isi takes the most crucial records with him he and other senior officials fly back to Japan and comfort the rest of the staff travels in 15
freight trains then disappears they leave behind 2 million biological weapons in Manchuria similar scenes play out at other sides of isi's Institute overall at least 580,000 people died due to Japan's bioweapons research fearing he might be charged as a war criminal ishi stages a large fake funeral for himself in 1945 in his hometown of chiota but Theus fails in February 1946 he is found by the US Army the Americans already know about Japan's bioweapons Research Center the cold war is already looming they too have experimented with bioweapons during World War II and they are after
the Japanese data such information could not be obtained in our own Laboratories because of Scruples attached to human experimentation like the Japanese they think this data must not fall into Soviet hands the Japanese bioweapons researchers see an opportunity to escape punishment for their crimes the meetings and interviews between the US and ISIS group are well documented if you grant me immunity for myself my superiors and my subordinates I can give you all the information in preparing for war with Russia I offer you the advantage of my 20 years of research and experience the details of
the negotiations remain disputed what is clear is that the information is deemed by the US to be of such importance to National Security as to far outweigh the value accruing from war crimes prosecution they strike a deal none of the senior bioweapons researchers including isi ever faces trial while Nazi doctors had tried as war criminals at nurenberg most of the Japanese involved live out their lives free from prosecution the Soviet Army captures 12 members of Unit 731 and puts them on trial in cabbarov in late 1949 they confess to dropping bombs filled with plague infected
fleas on civilians they speak of inhumane experiments on humans the West dismisses all of it as a communist show trial after short prison sentences they are released they too used the research data to secure leniency by now 1956 the convicted were free and returned to Japan many of the leading bioweapons researchers lived quietly in Japan in the following decades the war criminals who have dissected living bodies Rose to positions of power the governor of Toyo the head of Japan's biggest pharmaceutical company the president of the Japan Medical Association and other major offices there's overwhelming evidence
that the Japanese government knew about the atrocities yet it wasn't until August 2002 that the Tokyo District Court finally ruled that Japan had engaged in biological warfare its main purpose was to research develop and produce biological weapons in order to do this prisoners from the Chinese resistance forces were used as the subjects for experiments but no compensation was awarded in 2018 the Japanese National Archives released a list of the 3,607 members of unit 73 1 ishi didn't live to see it he died of throat cancer in 1959 before his death he regularly attended reunions of
his former unit almost every year former members gather some still deny to this day that they ever participated in human experiments
