I just listened to this movie about unit 731 (end of the post). Unit 731 was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War 1937–1945 and World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japanese personnel. Unit 731 was based at the Pingfang city in the Japanese. It was officially known as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army. Between 3,000 and 12,000 men, women, and children died during the human experimentation conducted by Unit 731. These researchers were not tried for war crimes.
It is estimated by some historians :
- Experimental Chambers
Unit 731 stretched across 2.3 square miles and it was made up of over 150 buildings. While some experiments were carried out in the field, others took place in specialized chambers. Some of these chambers featured centrifuges in which the victims were spun until they died, in order to determine the levels of force that would be fatal for human beings. Other captives were placed in high-pressure chambers until their bodies gave in and their eyes were protruding out of their orbits. Some subjects were treated with fatal doses of X-rays
- Biological Warfare
Unit 731 featured eight divisions. Division 1 was tasked with research on typhoid, anthrax, the bubonic plague, cholera and tuberculosis. The tests involved numerous live human subjects regardless of age or gender. For the specific purpose of human testing, a prison was built which had the capacity of holding between three and four hundred people. Division 2 was responsible for biological weapons research and how they were to be used in the field, with a focus on manufacturing devices, which would be able to spread parasites and germs. The facility had 4.500 containers
- Vivisection
Thousands of men, women and children who tragically became part of Unit 731’s dark history of human experimentation were subjected to vivisections, which were often performed without anesthesia. Many of them lost their lives as a result of the horrifying experiments. The procedure involved injecting one of the prisoners with a certain disease after which the vivisection was performed in order to study the effects the disease had on their body. Invasive surgery was performed on the test subjects and it involved removing different organs or parts of organs so that the researchers might observe
- Venereal Diseases
Unit 731 doctors and researchers studied the effects that venereal diseases had on the human body. Although this initially involved injecting the victims with the disease, the doctors eventually decided to force non-infected and infected prisoners to have sex with each other. This was done so that they might observe the disease throughout its stages starting from its transmission. In his testimony, one of the guards from Unit 731 described the method that was used for the transmission of syphilis between prisoners. ‘Infection of venereal disease by injection was abandoned, and the researchers started forcing the prisoners into sexual acts
- Frostbite Experiments
Some of the experiments that took place at Unit 731 monitored how the human body behaved under extreme temperatures. One of them involved frostbite testing. The captives were taken outside where their appendages were intermittently dipped in water until frostbite started to form into the targeted areas. According to testimonies, they determined whether an appendage was frozen by striking it with a short stick. If the body part was frozen
- Weapon Testing
Even before Unit 731, the Japanese Imperial Army had had a protocol which involved using captured Chinese soldiers for bayonet practice. An infamous photograph of a Japanese soldier with an infant impaled on his bayonet was taken during the Nanjing Massacre, which, along with Unit 731, represents some of the most horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity ever performed by the Japanese. Another common practice at Unit 731 was for the military personnel to test various weapons on the prisoners. They were tied to wooden
- Rape and Forced Pregnancy
Women were often forcibly impregnated so that experiments could be performed on them. One of the main objectives was to study the hypothesis of vertical transmission, meaning from mother to fetus, of certain diseases, with a focus on syphilis. The main objects of interest were survival of the fetus and how the mother’s reproductive organs were damaged. There is no clear account of how many babies were born at Unit 731. It is suspected that they were killed as soon as their experimental purpose was served. Women were subjected to physiological or bacteriological experiments
Information sign at the site today :
Men Behind the Sun is a 1988 Hong Kong–Chinese historical horror film. The film is a graphic depiction of the war atrocities committed by the Japanese at Unit 731, the secret biological weapons experimentation unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The film details the various cruel medical experiments Unit 731 inflicted upon the Chinese and Soviet prisoners towards the end of the war :
Good listening @AnarchoPirate