Author: yujung@ucsc.edu

Written by Romeo Jung.

Introduction

Unit 731 was a secret Biological and Chemical Warfare Unit that Imperial Japan had established during the World War II. Eager to win the war, the scientists involved committed a lot of inhumane crimes like vivisection to Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Mongolian prisoners of war, and used the data gained to harm many Chinese civilians. This essay details heavily on the biological research and its data from start to the end as well as their impacts and aftermath.

Background

Unit 731 was established first in 1932 as a small group of five scientists interested in biological weapons, and was expanded around 1936 when Shiro Ishii was given full command of the unit. Given alternative names like “lumber yard” and “Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of the Kwantung Army”, the name “Unit 731” was made formal in 1941. The lab was based at the Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory in Japanese Army Military Medical School in Tokyo. Their purpose was none of the given names, but biological and chemical warfare research.

The idea of Unit 731 first circulated around by a memo written in April 23, 1936, that speaks about the establishment of reinforcement military forces in Manchuria. The memo states that there would be a new “Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention Department” and that it shall be expanded later on. 

The headquarters was set in three square kilometers of land in Pingfang district, Manchuria. Many of the lab’s buildings inside were hidden by a tall wall and high voltage wired fences. The lab had around 150 buildings, including incinerator, housing for prisoners, an animal house, and air field. The buildings were completely isolated from the outside world, with only a tunnel as the entrance.

Unit 731, along with two other units to be mentioned later, was created in opposition to the Geneva protocol of 1925 banning biological and chemical warfare. This protocol was signed at June 17, 1925 in Geneva. It became effective from February 8th, 1928, and got registered by League of Nations Treaty Series on September 7, 1929.

Divisions

Within Unit 731, there were eight subunits designed to focus on different topics of warfare. The first division focused on biological weapons like bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax, typhoid, and tuberculosis, with human subjects to work with. The second division focused on effectively spreading the biological weapons covered in the first division. The third division was focused on a specific way of spreading biological agents by bomb, the fourth on bacteria mass production and storage. The fifth through eighth divisions were mostly focused on the supplying the rest of the Unit, which included training workers, providing equipment, and overall administrative units.

Outside of Unit 731, Japan established two departments: Unit 100 and Unit 516. Unit 100 was first declared as the “Kwantung Army Military Horse Epidemic Prevention Workshop,” which focused on developing biological weapons aside from Unit 731. “Kwantung Army Technical Testing Department”, later called Unit 516, was also established for more research that focused on chemical weapons. 

People Involved

There were many involved with the research of Unit 731, most of them remaining anonymous to this day. Shiro Ishii was the Chief of Unit 731, with Masaji Kitano as second in command. Other scientists were most likely to be a Professor at an university or a chief of a medical research unit, like Dr. Hisato Yoshimura, who directed the frostbite experiments on subjects, and Dr. Hideo Futaki, who lead the tuberculosis research squad and some vivisections. Other personnels include Lieutenant Shunichi Suzuki, who, after the trials, went to work as the Governor of Tokyo, and Amitani Shogo, who remained at the lab afterwards and received the Asahi Prize for outstanding scientific performance.

Shiro Ishii served in the Imperial Japanese Army from 1921 to 1945, and in the meantime, he was a Japanese army medical officer, microbiologist, and the director of Unit 731. Before serving in the army, he had studied medicine at Kyoto Imperial University. He was first assigned as an army surgeon, then to the First Army Hospital and Army Medical School in Tokyo. His work soon impressed the superiors, which earned him postgraduate level medical education. Ishii was promoted to an army surgeon in 1925, and was advocating for a biological weapons research program.

After getting promoted to higher ranks, Ishii began his experiments in Zhongma Fortress for biological weapons. Then the government granted him permission to set up Unit 731 in his hopes of digging deeper into the topic. After World War II, he was arrested for a short time by the US occupation authorities for Unit 731, then received immunity from consequences in exchange for data. There are different accounts as to what he did after that, but some say that he traveled around to give talks about biological weapons and others say that he stayed in Japan to provide medical services for free.

What They Did

In Unit 731, the first division conducted many outrageous experiments which were violating human rights. They conducted many experiments that tested the limitations of the human body. The prisoners, used as subjects, were of mixed ethnicity and gender, some pregnant, and some as young as three years old. The prisoners, tied to stakes, would have to endure the biological agent bombs that carried plague infested fleas on them or rats with the diseases. Then they were subject to their body being cut open with a scalpel and examined while they were screaming for mercy on the table. 

An unnamed Unit 731 surgeon, in an interview with New York Times, described his experience with the unit. His first vivisection, which he recalled that he “cut [the prisoner] open from the chest to the stomach, and he screamed terribly, and his face was all twisted in agony… …finally he stopped. This was all in a day’s work for the surgeons…” (Kristof) There was no use of anesthetics during vivisections at all because they were afraid that it would have an effect on the results and data.

In another part of his article, Kristof interviews a former medical worker in Unit 731, Takeo Wano. Wano says that he had seen “six-foot-high glass jar in which a Western man was pickled in formaldehyde. The man had been cut into two pieces, vertically.” There were many other jars in the headquarters of Unit 731 containing other body parts from different people, labeled often as their ethnicity. An anonymous Unit 731 veteran says that most of the jars had been noted as Chinese, Korean, and Mongolian, although there were occasionally American, English, and French. Some body parts were even sent in from other places.

Other experiments included prisoners being locked inside a pressure chamber to test how much pressure the body can handle before their eyes started popping out, being exposed to poisonous gas and many more biological and chemical weapons, having limbs cut off for studying blood loss, having cut off limbs attached to different parts of the body, having horse urine injected into kidneys, and having lethal dosages of x-rays. Kristof noted that “The accounts are wrenching to read even after so much time has passed: a Russian mother and daughter left in a gas chamber, for example, as doctors peered through thick glass and timed their convulsions, watching as the woman sprawled over her child in a futile effort to save her from the gas.”

Hisato Yoshimura, apart from infection based experiments, led the frostbite experiments, which focused on the effects of frostbite on human limbs. He gave orders to freeze limbs of prisoners, often until they were black. The prisoners were let in only when an officer was sure that their limbs were frozen. The officers would test limbs by beating them with a stick, as they knew that frozen limbs sound like wooden boards upon hitting. 

After chilling prisoners’ limbs to near 0 degrees Celsius with ice water, Yoshimura continued to chop off parts of the limb, especially fingers, so that he may record how the frostbite was affecting human limbs. He and his team experimented on subjects as young as three years old, with a needle in their finger to keep it from clenching into a fist. 

Effects During War

The Japanese Military used the biological weapons developed by Unit 731 directly on Chinese civilian population. Agents in divisions other than the first division in Unit 731 would spread the diseases by train, road, and airplanes. Many Chinese civilians developed the worst infections on their limbs, and only a few were exposed to treatment since no local doctors or hospitals had seen the infections before.

Quzhou village, Ya Fan village, and Chong Shan village in the Zhejiang Province had suffered deeply from the Bubonic Plague, as well as Dysentery, Typhoid, Cholera, and many more. In an episode of BBC Correspondent, Wu Shi-Gen, a victim of Unit 731’s biological weapons, tells his story of how the Bubonic Plague had affected his nine-year old brother. The rest of the family chose to lock his little brother away in another room to minimize the possibilities of infections while the little boy cried out from the room. Wu said he still remembers how he could not run in and help his brother when he cried out in pain.

Ya Fan village was affected with an unknown infection, commonly known to residents as “The Rotten Leg Disease.” A victim of this infection describes it as something that “started like an insect bite, then swelling and unbearable pain. Then his flesh started rotting away. Many died of it. Experts say it’s probably Glanders, another of Unit 731’s special recipes. Treatments were ineffectual and cost a fortune.” He stated that while his mother and he both had the disease on their legs, she refused the medicine so that he could have it instead of her. She passed away a few months later.

Aside from negative effects, Unit 731’s research was also used to heal Japanese soldiers with certain conditions. Studying about human conditions like frostbites and different diseases, the doctors could effectively pinpoint medical solutions for their sick soldiers. For instance, the frostbite experiment revealed that putting frozen limbs in water from 100 to 122 degrees Celsius is the best.

Aftermath

As soon as the World War II was over, the scientists at Unit 731’s headquarters started burning the building down, getting rid of all the evidence. When Shiro Ishii and many others were captured by China and sent over to the US for a trial, they had a deal with President MacArthur. He decided to let go of the Unit 731’s scientists free of charge for the war crimes in exchange for their medical research data.

In addition, Japanese government was fairly late to apologize to the rightful victims of Unit 731, while paying war tributes to the dead war criminals of Unit 731. They have been continuously visiting their shrines every year since 2013, offending neighboring countries and victims. Many news articles had been written about it, yet they do not seem to matter to the Japanese government.

Many Japanese scholars also deny the fact that there was ever a Unit 731 and state that the history involving the group is fabricated, although there are plenty of evidences. The Japanese history textbooks do not cover most of Japan’s horrific acts in World War II, leading them to believe that Japan was mostly a victim country rather than hostile like their opponents. By large, the Japanese public has a false sense of history due to the fact that their history textbooks are skewed. 

The former members of Unit 731 seem to have conflicting opinions about the publicity of the topic. Yoshio Shinozuka and some others had gone to give talks and share information about Unit 731, but others like Toshimi Mizobuchi intend to keep the promise to hide the information. A portion of Unit 731 members still hold their annual staff reunion parties hosted by Mizobuchi.

Conclusion

Unit 731 has been one of of the most cruel groups to do human experimentation, yet so few people that I’ve met know about what really happened. Although these inhumane experiments could be defended by saying that they were useful for modern medical science, they were definitely not worth the cost of many civilian lives as well as prisoners’ suffering.

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Glossary

Maruta — “Log” in Japanese. Prisoners were often called logs so that they could be experimented on without scientists feeling remorse.

Vivisection — Much like dissection, but with an alive person.

References

Unit 731: Japan’s Biological Warfare Project. (2018). Retrieved March 14, 2018, from https://unit731.org/
Kristof, N. D. (1995, March 17). Unmasking Horror — A special report.; Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/17/world/unmasking-horror-a-special-report-japan-confronting-gruesome-war-atrocity.html?pagewanted=all
L. (2013, February 11). Unit 731: Japan’s biological force. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LfMNX3TsT0
Working, R. (2001, June 5). The trial of Unit 731. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2001/06/05/commentary/world-commentary/the-trial-of-unit-731/#.WqoQ6z9zJhE
McCurry, J. (2013, December 26). Japan’s Shinzo Abe angers neighbours and US by visiting war dead shrine. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/dec/26/japan-shinzo-abe-tension-neighbours-shrine
Beijing, S. A. (2014, October 17). China protests at Japanese PM’s latest WW2 shrine tribute. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/17/china-protests-japan-shinzo-abe-yasukuni-shrine
Japanese PM Abe sends ritual offering to Yasukuni shrine for war dead. (2017, October 17). Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-yasukuni/japanese-pm-abe-sends-ritual-offering-to-yasukuni-shrine-for-war-dead-idUSKBN1CL355
Abe training jet photo sparks outrage in South Korean media. (2013, May 15). Retrieved March 24, 2018, from http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1238533/abe-training-jet-photo-sparks-outrage-south-korean-media
Tsuneishi, K. (2005, November 24). Unit 731 and the Japanese Imperial Army’s Biological Warfare Program. Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://apjjf.org/-Tsuneishi-Keiichi/2194/article.html
Pure Evil: Wartime Japanese Doctor Had No Regard for Human Suffering. (2016, June 15). Retrieved March 24, 2018, from https://www.medicalbag.com/despicable-doctors/pure-evil-wartime-japanese-doctor-had-no-regard-for-human-suffering/article/472462/
Tsuchiya, T. (2007, December 16). Retrieved March 24, 2018, from http://www.lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp/user/tsuchiya/gyoseki/presentation/UNESCOkumamoto07.html
Unit 731: One of the Most Terrifying Secrets of the 20th Century. (n.d.). Retrieved March 26, 2018, from https://www.mtholyoke.edu/~kann20c/classweb/dw2/page1.html

PHYSICIST LUIS ALVAREZ IS SEEN IS HIS LABORATORY PREPARING TO EVACUATE A GEIGER COUNTER. IMAGE © BETTMANN/CORBIS

Luis Alvarez and his life as “an American experimental physicist, inventor, and professor who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1968” was fascinating to research. He had published 22 patents, gotten involved with the Manhattan project during WWII as well as some of the technology helping the allies during the war. Listening to Alvarez’s life story gave me inspiration in many different ways.

Luis Alvarez was born on June 13th, 1911. His parents were Walter C. Alvarez and Harriet Smyth Alvarez. His father was a physician who conducted research. He became known as the American family doctor pretty soon on the newspaper, and had a great deal of influence on Alvarez. In Alvarez’s own words, he noted that “My father advised me to sit every few months in my reading chair for an entire evening, close my eyes, and try to think of new problems to solve. I took his advice very seriously and have been glad ever since I did.”

After attending University of Chicago for three years, Alvarez decided that chemistry did not suit him well enough for his declared major. He decided to switch over to physics after encountering the class “Advanced Experimental Physics Light”, and had to take twelve physics classes in five quarters. He then graduated with a BS in physics in 1932, MS in 1934, and a PhD in 1936. However, Alvarez concluded that his academics did not prepare him well enough for what was to come.

Alvarez achieved major discoveries, especially with cosmic rays and minuscule particles. He co-discovered the East-West effect in cosmic rays, which allowed scientists to conclude that the cosmic rays were charged with positive particles when the popular opinion at the time was quite the opposite. Alvarez also gave the first practical demonstration of k-capture in 1937, showing that atoms could decay when they absorb an electron from the lowest electron layer called the k-layer. This idea was theorized before, but Alvarez was the first one to prove it by demonstration.

To prepare for WWII wars, Alvarez left California to head towards Cambridge in November 11, 1940. While staying in MIT, he developed the radar technology that was used to track down German U-boats. When the Germans also installed some radar technology on their boats, Alvarez came up with an enhanced Vixen system which let the ally planes fool their radar technology. The Vixen system made the planes seem like they were moving away from the boats on radar, which in reality was the opposite. Alvarez, using similar methods, also created a safer system for the allies to guide their planes in during harsh weather. After a long trial and error stage, the system was able to let the crew on ground measure the exact angle the planes were in with the ground, and give instructions to bring them down securely.

In 1943,  Alvarez left MIT and joined the Manhattan project. Before joining the Los Alamos Lab to work on the steering committee for the nuclear bombs, he worked in Chicago with some others to develop a chain reaction that has to set off in nuclear bombs. Most of Alvarez’s work in the Los Alamos lab was on the plutonium bombs, although he did test both the uranium and plutonium bombs. His main job was to create a detonator for the bombs. The first bomb, created for testing purpose, that they worked on was named “The Gadget”. It was an implosion-design plutonium bomb. The Gadget was set off in what is now known as Trinity Site. Once the test was finished, Alvarez and other scientists moved to the islands of Tinian, where they prepared the bombs and the bombers for their eventual missions. 

On August 6, 1945, Alvarez rode on B-29 aircraft with the bombers.  Unlike others, Alvarez did not wear a parachute. He, in his self-written biography, stated that if the plane was to be shot down, he did not want to be captured alive. Alvarez witnessed the Little Boy being dropped on Hiroshima, and felt that he had to write a letter to his four year old son. These are his exact words.

“What regrets I have about being a party to killing and maiming  thousands of Japanese civilians this morning are tempered with the hope that this terrible weapon we have created may bring the countries of the world together and prevent further wars. Alfred Nobel thought that his invention of high explosives would have that effect by making wars too terrible. But unfortunately it had just the opposite reaction. Our new destructive force is so many times worse that it may realize Nobel’s dream.”

The Fat Man was dropped on August 9, 1945. Alvarez boarded not on the bomber plane this time, but on a small plane next to the B-29 Bockscar with many other physicists. Right before the bomb was dropped, Alvarez and others sent down a canister holding telemetry devices and a letter. In the letter,  addressed to Japanese nuclear physicist Ryokichi Sagane—a man Alvarez had worked with before in Berkeley, Alvarez and the others pleaded Sagane to use his influence to reach his leaders and generals to stop the war. They had noted how strong the nuclear weapon was, and that Japanese cities would be totally annihilated if the war continued this way.

After the peace treaty was signed, Alvarez, like many other scientists who worked on the nuclear bomb, was horrified of the results. There were many controversial talks of if the Fat Man was really necessary, and Alvarez believed it indeed was, rather than the more popular contrary belief. He believed that because it did not take long for them to use the second weapon, it scared other countries enough to surrender into making peace. He also believed that Nagasaki and Hiroshima would have been depleted by other measures, if not by nuclear bombs. 

In his later years, Alvarez focused his efforts on high energy atomic research. He met with Donald Glaser, the founder of the Bubble Chamber, to study the device. Bubble Chamber was a device that allowed the scientists to track the movements of the particles inside a glass tube by the bubbles they created while moving around. When Alvarez was starting out with his studies for particles, he started with a Bubble Chamber about an inch wide. Later, he was working with glass tubes that measured seventy-two inches. He also switched the fluid inside the tube to hydrogen. Since hydrogen is 2500 degrees below Celsius, as the particles moved around, they boiled hydrogen to make bubbles. Using this technology, Alvarez discovered a lot of elementary particles, including the short-lived resonant state particles. Alvarez won a Nobel Prize for his discoveries of elementary particles, and will be remembered most for making a lot of particle physics possible.

While Alvarez was truly a genius man, death had taken him on September 1, 1988 by cancer. Alvarez had left many discoveries and advancements in technology for us to develop more, and he shall be admired for all his hard work.

I believe that the legacy that Alvarez left is not only his amazing work, but his respect towards science is honorable as well. Richard Muller, who was a PhD student working under Alvarez, wrote a book named Nemesis, the Death Star, which had a chapter and short references in the beginning and throughout the book about his experiences with Alvarez. Muller and Alvarez seemed to have an argument on whose opinion on an academic paper was right. During the heated discussion, Muller argued that there could be a model to disapprove Alvarez’s argument, to which Alvarez described the thought process “no-think,” only because it was purely hypothetical to his eyes. When Muller did come up with a model that was built on half-sincerity, Alvarez quickly retracted his arguments and took it seriously enough to examine if there are any flaws. He later admitted that he would have had an answer had Muller proposed another model, but the model that Muller came up with surprised him and that he hadn’t been considering the chance at all. The air in the room seemed to chill, and they started to think seriously about the chances of the model being a reality. Alvarez was quick to retract his words and give his honest opinions on what he thought; he was willing to lose a debate if it meant for the correctness of science.

Aside from his many accomplishments and other thoughts about Alvarez, I think this quote of him talking about one of his high school stories displays his character the best:

“In Rochester, a friend and I used to climb the buildings under construction, usually by sneaking past the guards in the middle of the night. We climbed the three hundred foot clinic tower when it was only a skeleton of steel beams. We explored the power house and scaled the inside of its 200 foot brake smokestack. I mentioned these escapades not to brag about being a scofflaw, but only because I’m convinced that it controlled disrespect for society is essential to a scientist. All the good experimental physicist I have known have had an intense curiosity that no keep-out sign could mute. “

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Bibliography

Wilson, T. V., & Frey, H. (2013, September 23). Luis W. Alvarez, Pt. 1 [Audio blog post]. Retrieved December 23, 2017, from https://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts/luis-w-alvarez-pt-1.html

Wilson, T. V., & Frey, H. (2013, September 23). Luis W. Alvarez, Pt. 2 [Audio blog post]. Retrieved December 23, 2017, from https://www.missedinhistory.com/podcasts/luis-w-alvarez-pt-2.html

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2017, April 10). Luis Alvarez. Retrieved December 23, 2017, from http://www.britannica.com/biography/Luis-Alvarez

Muller, R. (1998). Nemesis, the death star. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.

 

Written by Romeo.