Detachment 731 (Bacteriological Weapons of Japan)

Main article: Japan

1920s: Microbiologist Shiro Ishii suggests using biological weapons

The idea of ​ ​ creating bacteriological weapons was finally formed in the Japanese Empire in the late 1920s, when the country was experiencing a period of rapid growth. To combat the likely enemy - the dominant in the region USA and, Britain as well as the USSR, which strengthened after the civil war, they were looking for effective weapons. Japanese Microbiologist Shiro Ishii volunteered to create it. 

1932: Funds allocated in Japan to establish a biological weapons development complex in Manjuria

Shiro Ishii in 1932

In the early 1930s, Ishii toured the leading bacteriological laboratories in Europe. In the report following the trip, the scientist proves that biological weapons can bring a huge advantage to the Japanese Empire. 

"Unlike artillery shells, it is not able to instantly kill human power, but these shells, filled with bacteria, affect the human body and animals without noise, bringing a slow but painful death. It is not necessary to produce shells, you can infect quite peaceful things - clothes, cosmetics, food and drinks, edible animals - you can spray bacteria from the air, "Ishii wrote .

The report impressed the Japanese military leadership, and in 1932, at the direction of Minister of War Sadao Araki, funds were allocated to create a special complex for the development of biological weapons. The construction of laboratories began in Japanese-occupied Manchuria, 20 km south of the main city of Harbina province. Shiro Ishii was appointed the leader of the detachment. Scientific staff were recruited from the best graduates of prestigious Japanese educational institutions. Officially, the complex was called the Main Directorate for Water Supply and Prevention of the Kwantung Army. 

1936: Monstrous experiments on living people begin

The bulk of the "work" in the complex began in 1936, and ended only with the offensive of the Red Army in 1945.

The history of the unit became known thanks to the book of the Japanese researcher Morimura Seiichi "Devil's Kitchen." Its content is so shocking that in the preface the author warns readers about the possible "loss of faith in humanity" after reading the book. 

For 9 years, the detachment employees conducted a huge number of monstrous experiments on living people. For this, the test subjects were infected, sometimes opened to follow the course of the development of the disease. Anesthesia was not used: it was believed that it could affect the course of the experiment. The life of the prisoner was extended with the help of supportive therapy, however, by no means for humanistic reasons. 

The test subjects in the detachment were called nothing more than "logs." To document the progress of the disease, artists were present at the autopsy procedures. Black and white photos did not satisfy the researchers: they needed authentic transmission in the image of affected organs. 

A special unit of Detachment 731 was engaged in the study of the limits of the capabilities of the human body. People were cut off by limbs, frostbite or burns and monitored for gangrene development, placed in pressure chambers and recorded on cameras the agony of victims. Experiments were conducted even on children and pregnant women: the latter observed the pregnancy process and experimented on an unborn fetus. Experiments with vivisection were actively carried out: vital organs were removed from people, from the intestines to the brain. The mutilated were then sent for research to various departments of the laboratory. 

People who miraculously recovered from experiments were infected again. None of the test subjects left the territory of the complex alive. Among the diseases that Detachment 731 experimented with were anthrax, smallpox and botulism. Over the years of research, the group managed to breed a strain of plague bacillus, which was 60 times stronger than usual. 

Unit 731 personnel infect the Chinese civilian population with bubonic plague in Harbin, Manchuria, 1940.

The unit was curated by Prince Takeda in 1940.

The exact number of victims is unknown, but approximately their number is estimated at 3 thousand people. 70% of the subjects were Chinese, about 30% were Soviet citizens, the rest were Koreans, Manchus, Mongols, Americans, British and Australians. 

The activities of the detachment were not limited only to laboratory tests. Bacteriological weapons were used by the Japanese against the Chinese. Wells in the areas of action of Chinese partisans and in the rear of Chinese troops were infected with typhoid pathogens. For a number of operations, Detachment 731 received thanks from the Japanese army.

Plans for bacteriological sabotage were created in case of war with the USSR: Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk, Chita could be under attack. An attack was also planned on the United States. Japanese forces considered infecting American territory through bombing from aircraft. 

The plan was opposed by Prime Minister Hideki Tojio. The politician believed that the war was lost, and feared the revenge of the Americans. 

1945: Evacuation of a detachment from Manchuria due to the advance of the Red Army

The demented unit's end came on August 9, 1945, when Soviet forces launched the Manchurian Offensive and a second atomic bomb landed on Nagasaki. The command ordered the destruction of all traces of the detachment's activities. The evacuation of personnel began, the destruction of documentation and evidence, as well as the murder of all subjects who were in custody at that moment. The complex of laboratories was blown up. However, due to the rapid offensive of the Red Army, only senior officers, including Shiro Ishii, were able to flee with a number of important documents.

1948: None of the "Detachment 731" members captured by the Americans were convicted by the Tokyo Tribunal

Shiro Ishii, who fled Manchuria, handed over all the materials to the American command in exchange for life and freedom. Most of the ordinary employees of his detachment were captured by the Soviet. 

Documents handed over to the Americans still remain classified. None of the members of Detachment 731 who were captured by the Americans were convicted by the Tokyo Tribunal, which took place from May 3, 1946 to November 12, 1948. Prince Takeda, who oversaw the research, did not suffer punishment either. Moreover, on the eve of the 1964 Games, he headed the Japanese Olympic Committee. 

Shiro Ishii, with the rank of lieutenant general, lived until 1959 and died in Japan. According to some reports, he collaborated with the Americans and even continued his research. His deputy Masahi Kitano worked for the Japanese pharmaceutical company Green Cross after the war, was also not convicted and never spoke about life during the war years. However, a number of other officers and members of the detachment began to talk about the activities of the unit by the end of their lives. Just on the basis of their memories, Morimura Seyichi wrote his book.

1949: Khabarovsk trial: members of "Detachment 731," who were captured by the Soviet, were sentenced to terms from 2 to 25 years

The open trial of the Military Tribunal of the Primorsky Military District in Khabarovsk on December 25-30, 1949 over twelve former Japanese military men who served in the Kwantung Army, including five generals, was an expression of the principled position of the Soviet Union in relation to the bacteriological threat and condemnation of crimes against humanity that were not taken into account by the Tokyo Tribunal.

All members of the detachment who were captured in Soviet captivity were convicted by verdict of the Khabarovsk Tribunal in 1949 for terms ranging from 2 to 25 years. It was rumored that the captured Japanese shared the results of the work with Soviet specialists. 

2019: Japan declassifies data of 3.6 thousand members of "Detachment 731"

In April 2019, it became known that the National Archives of Japan declassified the data of 3.6 thousand members of the "Detachment 731" of the Japanese Imperial Army, which was engaged in the development of bacteriological weapons during the Second World War. 

Japanese The archive declassified the data on Detachment 731 at the request of Katsuo Nishiyama, a professor at the University of Medical Sciences. He leads a group of Japanese scientists who believe that a detailed story about the activities of the detachment will avoid a repetition of similar tragedies in the future. 

The data disclosure talks lasted two years. As a result, the names and addresses of 3607 members of the so-called Main Directorate for Water Supply and Prevention of the Kwantung Army, under whose sign Detachment 731 worked, became known. Among them are 52 surgeons, 38 nurses, 49 engineers and 1,117 military doctors. 

2021: FSB publishes protocols of interrogations of the head of the Hogoin concentration camp about experiments on Soviet prisoners of war

Under the leadership of the special detachment of Shiro Ishii, the Japanese were going to arrange a plague epidemic in the USSR. In 2021, the FSB published the interrogation protocols of the head of the Hogoin concentration camp, Ioshio Iijima, and his deputy Kendzie Yamagisi, from which it followed that Japanese military doctors tested bacteriological weapons on Soviet prisoners of war^[1]. Yamagishi explicitly stated the policy of extermination of Soviet prisoners of war:

Defiant to our Japanese interests, the Soviet servicemen held in the Hogoin camp were physically exterminated by us, and such extermination was carried out in the 731st chemical sabotage detachment, in which various experiments were previously carried out on the doomed to death by Soviet people in order to test the action of new chemical poisonous substances and bacteriological agents.

The Japanese conducted experiments on living people, trying to use the most dangerous diseases as a weapon, and insects as vectors. The infamous 731 squad put experiments on infecting people not only with plague bacteria, but also anthrax, cholera, typhus and other dangerous diseases. Some people had their internal organs cut out during their lifetime to see how the infection spread through the body.

The first attempt to test this new type of weapon took place during the battles on Khalkhin Gol. And then the Japanese switched to the development of a ceramic bomb with plague fleas and prepared detachments of poisoners of drinking sources in the Soviet rear.

"Despite the fact that the Khabarovsk process was open and its materials were published in the media, a significant part of the documents has not yet been available to researchers," the FSB DSP noted. The materials collected during the investigative actions, preparation and conduct of the Khabarovsk process were stored in archives, access to which until this year was limited.

"The documents selected for the exhibition peremptorily testify to Japan's violation of the treaty with the Soviet Union on mutual neutrality and the preparation by the Japanese militarists of the war in the Far East," the DSP noted. The testimony of members of the Kwantung Army command (former commander-in-chief of the Kwantung Army, General Yamad Otozoo, Lieutenant General of the Medical Service Kazitsuka Ryuji, Major General of the Medical Service Kawashima Kioshi and others) reveals the truth about the planned and already committed crimes against peace and humanity by militaristic Japan.

For the first time, documentary materials were also presented to the general public about the Khogoin camp for Russians located near Harbin (translated into Russian as Shelter), from where the prisoners were sent as test subjects to Japanese military units created in Manchuria (detachments numbered 731 and 100), which were engaged in the preparation of bacteriological and chemical war.

2024: FSB declassifies document on Japan's use of bio-weapons against the Red Army

At the end of August 2024, the FSB published declassified archival documents on Japan's use of bacteriological weapons against the USSR. This happened at the end of August 1939 during the battle on the Khalkhin-Gol River.

The published materials, in particular, cite the words of a prisoner of war - senior non-commissioned officer of the Japanese army Hayashi Kazuo. At one of the interrogations, he testified about the use of bio-weapons. According to him, in 1939, during the clash of Japanese troops with the Red Army on the border of Mongolia, by order of the Japanese military command, part of Ishii Shiro made three experiences in infecting the area in order to defeat enemy troops. Infection of the territory with abdominal typhoid bacteria was carried out on the night of August 29, 30 and 31. The first two experiences were carried out by order of the commander of the Kwantung Army, Colonel-General Ueda Kenkichi, the third - in accordance with the order of Ishii Shiro himself.

I was appointed intendant of the detachment, so all the activities of the detachment on the border of Mongolia are well known to me. On July 3, 1939, the detachment left for the Mongolian border in the combat area and stopped at a site east of Lake Morehi. During the retreat of the Japanese army, an area was chosen where the concentration of units of the Red Army was supposed to be, and this area became infected. The waters of the Haruha and Horuste rivers were used to spread the bacteria, "Kazuo said during the interrogation.

Infection of the Khalkhin-Gol river area with pathogenic bacteria of typhoid, paratif and dysentery was carried out by a detachment of "suicide bombers" in the amount of 30-40 people, led by Major Ikari (Ikaria) Tsunesige. This detachment was part of the "expedition" of General Ishii Shiro in the combat area. Kazuo, as well as other military personnel who participated in the development of bacteriological weapons, were convicted by the Military Tribunal of the Primorsky Military District.^[2]

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