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Gen. Ishii Shiro--mastermind of Unit 731

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Gen. Ishii Shiro--mastermind of Unit 731

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Built in Japan-controlled China, this institution mutilated and tortured hundreds of thousands of victims in the name of "science" and advancement of war technology. The victims of this building were people from the surrounding Chinese villages, although it also housed Allied POWs like Americans, Britons, and Australians.

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Not much is known about this secretive project since most testimony we have are from people who worked there. See below:

"I HAD only one chance to see an analysis of a live prisoner," says Nobuyuki Abe, munching one of his wife's excellent rice cakes. "I was just an observer, you understand. My job was to carry buckets, ropes, little jobs like that. The analysis itself was carried out by the specialists. When they did the live analysis they fixed the prisoner to a table. It's alive, and it's struggling, of course. They give it a bit of ether, but it's still alive, and the organs are still working normally. Then they start the analysis. There are screams and groans, and when they get too loud, they put a mask over the prisoner's face. Every organ is taken - they used to say you got better samples from live prisoners. When they find a good one, they preserve it in formaldehyde. The prisoner didn't survive."

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The Japanese People's Emancipation League working underground

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The Japanese People's Emancipation League working underground

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US pamphlet dropped on Japanese towns to warn of a "future attack"

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US pamphlet dropped on Japanese towns to warn of a "future attack"

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The US warned the Japanese government to surrender unconditionally before they did "something bad"; while the Japanese actually did agree to surrender, they still wanted to keep their military and emperor. Because the two countries couldn't agree, they stayed at war, and the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not even the US military knew what these weapons were capable of, and the scientists who created the atom bomb felt that they created a "destroyer of worlds."

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Below are testimonies from survivors:

Victims wandered the roads among piles of the dead, desperate to reach the river for water, while sections of their skin remained hanging from their bodies. A survivor recollects, “As I tried to lift a woman out of the river, her skin was slipping off in huge, glove-like pieces.”

Shizuko Nishimoto says, “At the moment of 8:15 AM, the gate of hell was opened. My two neighbors were burning alive, but I could not enter the house. I had no time to spare.”

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A teacher near the center of the explosion claims, “My immediate thought was that this was like the hell I had always read about…I had never seen anything which had resembled it before, but should there be a hell, this was it.”

Social worker describes: “The city was so hot from the fire…I saw the bodies of a mother and her child, but the child was still alive. I hoped that the people passing would take the child as I had to find my own family...The memory of that mother and child by the bridge has never left me.

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The civilian victims of the Atomic Bomb suffered from lasting health effects, such as cancer, 1st degree burns, infection, and blindness. Those with visual deformities were called "hibakusha" and they were avoided in society. These people found it difficult to find jobs or get married because other Japanese saw them as "contaminated."

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Like Germany's anti-Hitler groups, Japan also had numerous civilians and military members who deeply opposed the war. Groups, like the Japanese People's Anti-War Alliance, sent underground messages to members in other countries to overthrow militarists and "establish a democracy" in Japan.

(In photo--Japanese anti-War cartoonists picture Hideki Tojo [Warlord of Japan] being strangled)

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When the Japanese military invaded other parts of Asia, many imprisoned foreign "comfort women" in a large trafficking scheme that sexually abused up to 400,000 women. Here are the estimates below:
-Chinese Women: 200,000
-Korean Women: 140,000
-Other Southeast Asian Women: 50,000-70,000

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This scene depicts the cliffs in which hundreds of people jumped to their death in fear.

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Near the end of the war, the Japanese government advised civilians to be cautious of the Americans trying to "help" them, and told the civilians tales of US soldiers torturing children, assaulting women, and killing innocent people. Therefore, when the Americans arrived to Saipan to provide food and medical supplies, the inhabitants were so terrified of the soldiers that many of them committed suicide by jumping off the cliffs.

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The fighting between Japan and the USA was particularly brutal as both countr ies succeeded in dehumanizing the other through political actions and propaganda. The hatred for each other was made easier and more intensely due to the Japanese and Americans com ing from generally different cultures.

Japan was angry that the US stopped its imperialism and oil-harvesting efforts in Asia; in return, the US was angry that Japan surprise attacked Pearl Harbor. These events led to the deaths of 35 million people over the course of 3 years.

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In 1942, Japan already conquered the Philippines (an ally of the US). As shown in the map, American and Filipino POWs were forced to march 60 miles in grueling conditions without food or water. Should a soldier stop to rest, they'd be shot on the spot.

"Sun Treatment": Thirsty POWs were placed near water and forced to watch it as they baked in the hot sun. About 3,000 POWs died.

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This scene is a great example of what POWs experienced in Pacific prison camps.

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Unbroken (8/10) Movie CLIP - Punch Him in the Face (2014) HD

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Generally, the Japanese military was told NOT to surrender, so there were fewer POWs held by the Americans as the Japanese would instead commit to suicide attacks. Like the Japanese treated US POWs, the American camps for Japanese POWs were in very poor condition, too. It was not uncommon for American soldiers to cut off and keep pieces of Japanese soldiers' bodies they killed as "trophies"--see photo.

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Victims were referred to as "logs" to further dehumanize their suffering during experiments. See the witness story below:

Takeo Wano, a 71-year-old former medical worker in Unit 731 who now lives here in the northern Japanese city of Morioka, said he once saw a six-foot-high glass jar in which a Western man was pickled in formaldehyde. The man had been cut into two pieces, vertically, and Mr. Wano guesses that he was Russian because there were many Russians then living in the area.

The Unit 731 headquarters contained many other such jars with specimens. They contained feet, heads, internal organs, all neatly labeled. "I saw samples with labels saying 'American,' 'English' and 'Frenchman,' but most were Chinese, Koreans and Mongolians," said a Unit 731 veteran who insisted on anonymity. "Those labeled as American were just body parts, like hands or feet, and some were sent in by other military units."