Page 6 - Marutas of Unit 731

ever y captive was killed. By the time the Soviets arrived in Manchuria, they
found a destroyed facility with animals in cages, human remains, and most

of the staff already evacuated.

Under the super vision of Ishii Shiro, Unit 731 and its subsidiaries not

only regularly conducted vivisection on humans, they were also proud of the

weaponr y produced as a result. Initial appalling exper iments at the Anta

testing ground included testing the effectiveness of various bombs used on
victims tied to stakes, exposure to extreme cold to document the e ect of

frostbite on victims’ limbs, and exposure to severe changes in air pressure to

test human limits for the purpose of airplane development. es e were only

a few of many experiments conducted in the decade in which the unit was

active.
When scientists needed more victims for human exper imentation, they

simply had to ll out a request and, the majority of the time, the Kwantung

Army would make a special human deliver y. e bound victims’ heads were

covered with sacks as they were transported on trains and then in vehicles

through underground tunnels to the gate of Unit 731 where exper iments
would commence. Other wise known as “maruta”, which means logs in

Japanese, Unit 731 were not thought of as humans but merely as test

subjects. Once exhausted by the exper iments, marutas were viewed as

unusable material and subsequently killed. As stated by Mitomo Kazuo

during the Khabarovsk Trial, “At the beg inning of September 1944, two
Russians were shot dead in my presence by a gendarme at the cattle

cemeter y and were buried there. is was done on the orders of Lieutenant

Nakajima. ey were shot because no more exper iments could be

performed on them in view of their exhausted state and unsuitability for

further experimentation.” is kind of brutality in Unit 731 and that of its