Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Wednesday, August 14, 2002
Japanese Wartime Human Experiments in China
Japan's Unit 731, part of Japan's Kwantung Army, is notorious for manufacturing materials for germ warfare and testing them on live people during World War II.
Site of Japan's Notorious Unit 731 Opens to the Public
Japan's Unit 731, part of Japan's Kwantung Army, is notorious for manufacturing materials for germ warfare and testing them on live people during World War II.
With a research center set up in 1932 in Harbin in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, Unit 731 appointed over 3,000 medical and other researchers to develop and make weapons for germ warfare.
Captives from many countries and Chinese civilians were deliberately infected with plague, cholera and anthrax and exposed to toxic gases.
Over 10,000 healthy Chinese, Russian, Korean and Mongolian civilians were tortured to death.
Research shows the Unit was capable of producing enough germ warfare weapons to destroy mankind many times.
Before their retreat in August 1945, the Unit destroyed most of the incriminating evidence.
However, some documents were later found and made public by experts.
The frostbite experiments revealed Tuesday were carried out by the Beijing Unit 1855 of the Japanese troops. A former interpreter with the army, who died last year, said that "The army tested at least 500 people every year on average."
Japanese germ warfare experiments have affected the whole world and yet most of the perpetrators escaped trial.
Since 2000 over 300 instruments used in wartime dissections have been discovered at the site of Unit 731, where a theme park is now to being constructed.