Japanese Bacteriological Weapons Program 1936-1945: Detachment 731 and inhumane experiments

An exhibition hall of evidence of crimes committed by Detachment 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army in Harbin, Heilongjiang Province in northeast China

From 1936 to 1945, the Japanese Empire conducted one of the most brutal and secret programs to create bacteriological weapons. The main focus of this activity was the infamous Unit 731, located in occupied Manchuria. The program included mass experiments on people — mainly prisoners of war and civilians from China, as well as other nationalities — and large-scale production of deadly bacteria.

Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii has been in charge of this program since 1936. He firmly believed that biological weapons would give Japan an advantage in the war. During the war, Detachment 731 and other units, such as Detachment 100, 1644 and 1855, developed and produced pathogens of plague, anthrax, cholera, typhus, brucellosis and other diseases. Special bombs, insect vectors, and water contamination were used to spread infections.

The victims suffered terrible tortures: infection with deadly pathogens, vivisection without anesthesia, burns, frostbite, experiments with chemical weapons and artificial wounds. Many died in agony, their bodies were burned in crematoriums.

According to various estimates, from 3 to 12 thousand people were killed in laboratories, and up to 400 thousand died in the occupied territories. At the end of the war, the Japanese tried to destroy all traces of their activities, and the United States granted immunity to the heads of the program in exchange for research.

The materials of Detachment 731 influenced post-war research on biological weapons in the USSR and the USA, but the crimes and atrocities of the detachment remain one of the darkest pages of the Second World War. Today, there is a museum on the site of the Harbin base, but the topic remains painful and largely hushed up in Japan.