Unit 731 - Testimony

This book is probably not only an indictment of Japanese Human Biological Experiments but a condemnation of a US military industrial system that allowed the perpetrators to escape as long as the data fell into US hands and not the Soviets.Basically before WWII the Japanese where world leaders in military medicine and during the Manchurian invasion took Chinese POWs to death camps for medical experimentation to advance science under the guidance of Professor Ishii Shiro, one of the most respected members of the Japanese medical community. The experiments were deemed so advantageous and necessary that the Japanese military built fortresses entirely devoted to human experimentation and bacteria stockpiling. This involved injecting a rat with a bacteria and then allowing a flea in a jar to feed on the rat. By creating stockpiles of infected fleas they would then design bombs to drop the fleas into towns and cities, but not before they experimented on POWs first. One experiment involved arranging POWs tied to crosses in circles in a field and then detonating the infected flea bombs in the centre to see how far the fleas could travel before infecting the host. One of the most documented human experiment programs took place in a location called "Ping Fang" and included surgical work done on POWs not under anaesthetics, freezing POWs for frostbite tests and infecting POWs with Cholera, Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever and THE PLAGUE all of which this book ties to the Japanese civil sector and the government under the control of a special branch called Unit 731.This book even describes Japanese attempts at launching biological attacks on America and how after America took control of the Japans the whole thing was kept quiet so that the US military could get hold of the data as part of its Cold War. The second half of this important book is devoted entirely to witness testimony and confessions. The Japanese or US government have never admitted to these war crimes but the evidence is now available for everyone to see. Many of the death camps and human experimentation factories are still standing today. This is a pocket sized book, but an essential read. My only critic is that it does not contain some of the more famous photographs of Unit 731 in action.This is an essential history lesson that is still a holocaust in denial.

The past year I had the opportunity to work in Japan. I was excited about this as I have had a interest in Japan for a while. Before I say anything about the book I want to mention that all the Japanese people I met and befriended were/are some of the most honest and loyal people that I have had the pleasure to have met. However, one thing did bother me. I came across Unit 731 in an English speaking newspaper but I had no idea what it meant. I talked to one of my expat friends to see if he knew what Unit 731 was. I was shocked to find out the truth of Unit 731. What even shocked me more was the fact that most Japanese people deny that Unit 731 ever existed. I had some of my students write term papers about how people from other countries(the US) made these stories up to make Japan look bad. My girlfriend who is Japanese even has the same opinions as some of my students, even though she has read the book and many others that deal with subjects about Japan's war record. This book was helpful to understand the horrors of war which hopefully will not be repeated again.

It was no secret that the Japanese people generally believed they were indeed unique and superior to other people. The Japanese Imperial Army/Navy was indoctrinated with Bushido. This turned their troops into a merciless killing machine. They firmly believed that all killings in the name of serving their emperor were totally justified. They were expected to die gloriously on the battlefield and to resist capture at all cost, because, as they believed their enemy certainly would humiliate them before killing them. Of course, as a self-proclaimed savior to many Asian peoples, or more accurately, as a victorious conqueror, they could do anything they wanted to the vanquished, for the vanquished were but sub-human beings. To humiliate the vanquished and to conduct barbaric, inhumane experiments on the conquered was just a more entertaining part of their killing ritual---an ultimate display of their true Bushido! This was exactly what an "upstanding" Army with an "idealism" meant, and did, to millions of innocent victims in Asia. Their "idealism" meant only enslavement of millions of people, stripped of human dignity, and bowing to the harsh demands of the Japanese. Certainly, the Western Powers have done their share of plundering and exploitation in Asia and elsewhere. Does that mean Japan must join in and outdo them in their exploitation, hurting these people even more? Two wrongs do not make a right. In addtion to the notorious Unit 731, there were unit 100, unit 1644 and numerous other special units whose job was to conduct barbaric experiments on living human beings. These were no small groups, and these were not isolated incidents. It was the rule and not the exception; it was the Japanese government policy! Moreover, it was but the tip of the iceberg in term of Japanese heartless and shameless atrocities. Some atrocity-denier states that "to blame the entire army for the sins of a small group is pathetic". By such (pathetic) logic, are you not saying do not blame Hitler, who is just one person, for killing 6 millions Jews? Are you not saying do not blame the A-bomb, which is just one small weapon? Pathetic?

A sad episode in human history, this book details the inhuman and sadistic human experimentations perpetrated by the Japanese military, primarily on the populace of China. The evil deeds included vivisection, freezing human subjects to study frostbites, and spreading airborne biological agents to target populations. A clear indictment of Japanese military which lost its accountability to its government and the people, as it had happened in Nanking, China.While I was reading this book, I was also reading "77 Samurai" by Lewis Bush, which is about Japan's first embassy to the United States. The two books presented interesting contrasts. "77 Samurai" gave a portrayal of Japanese people who were ready to open their doors to the outside world, after a self-imposed seclusion of 250 years, eager to learn everything they could. Less than one hundred years later, they were embarking on their conquest of China, Korea, and Souteast Asia with wanton disregard of human lives, as detailed in this book. These two books present the benevolent and the evil sides of human race. The question is, how can the same people act so differently and are the rest of us any different?The books contains many first-hand accounts from the participants of the experiments in Unit 731, which lends the book much credibility.Disturbing contents but very well written. A great read!

The book deals with the specialized Japanese Unit that focused on immoral and illegal experiments (very much like the Joseph Mengala experiments of Nazi Germany). Not only does the book deal with the 'whats' and 'hows', but also presents the 'whys'. In addition, The stories are often written in the first person account. I especially liked the inclusion of the history of Japanese medicine (particularly its prestige and former exceptional medical record). Also, the focus on Ameican cover up after WWII was relevant.