Page 25 - Unit 731

direct participation and guidance of Unit 731 from 1938 to 1945. These institutions included Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Departments of
the Northern China Area Army, the Central China Expeditionary Army, the Southern China Area Army, and the Southern Expeditionary Army Group in
Beijing, Nanjing, Guangzhou, and Singapore respectively.
Apart from these four, there were still thirty-six Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Departments of various army divisions, twelve Epidemic
Prevention and Water Purification Departments of field operation, and nine independent ones. Until the surrender of Japan, sixty-three units of Epidemic
Prevention and Water Purification Departments in total were founded across East and Southeast Asia, such as China, Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, and
Thailand.
As Unit 731 was established for invasion and bacteriological warfare, its foundation and development were supported by the Emperor, Japanese
Government, the Imperial Japanese Army General Staff Office, the Kwantung Army, and Japan’s medical circle. From its foundation, location, scale, and
area of Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Departments, bacteriological warfare gradually became Japan’s important means of military
dominance of China and other Asian countries. They were crucial components of the plan of invading China, reflecting that Japan’s bacteriological warfare
was a top-down, premeditated, and organised national crime.

Became Ash: Crazy Actions before Escape

The Second World War reached its final stage in 1945 when most areas of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ came under Allied control. The
war in Africa had already ended, Fascist Italy surrendered in 1943, and Nazi Germany unconditionally surrendered on 8 May 1945. Japan was the only
remaining Axis power. On 17 July 1945, the US, the UK, and Nationalist China held a conference in Potsdam near Berlin, Germany, and released an
ultimatum—the Potsdam Declaration—urging Japan to surrender. On 6 and 9 August, the US military dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima and
Nagasaki respectively, while Unit 731 in Harbin witnessed some unusual changes.
Destroy Every Evidence: Blast the Headquarters
At midnight on 9 August, Unit 731 received intelligence that the Soviet military launched an attack on the Kwantung Army in the north-eastern China.
Shirō Ishii immediately called high ranking military officials for an emergency conference, after which he announced the imposition of a curfew in the
station of Unit 731 and prepared for retreat. In order to protect Unit 731’s secrecy, Ishii ordered destruction of all command documents, research material,
experiment reports, medical equipment, and human specimens.
A surviving labourer of Unit 731, Guozhong Jin, recalls:
In the night on August 9, 1945, it was raining and planes were flying in the sky. I saw fire on the grassland southwest of Unit 731’s station, which was done by Japanese themselves. At 2 am next day,
a train arrived on the exclusive track, and those Japanese independents desperately crowded into the train. After the train left, many Japanese women who were unable to crowd into the train, were
crying on the platform. At 3 am or later, there was a very loud sound, and the northwest corner of Sifanglou was exploded by the Japanese themselves. Throughout the day of August, 10 I could hear
constant explosions from Sifanglou. 19
Toshimi Mizobuchi, then Health Corporal of Unit 731, provided the following testimony in 2004:
At around 1 p.m. on August 9, Colonel Kiyoshi Ōta, the Secretary of General Affairs, the Commanding General responsible for blasting the Unit, delivered an order: stop every activity of Unit 731
and terminate Unit 731. Military dependents, according to their level of confidentiality, were protected and transferred back to the mainland by related staffs … concentrated on the treatment of the 7th
and 8th building. On the other hand, a large number of soldiers were working on jobs such as gathering microscopes and burning; remaining military dependents were also doing similar jobs, sending
so-called documents, books or X-ray images to the boiler room to burn them. 20
On 13–14 August, the Ishihara Combat Engineer Battalion of the 131th Independent Mixed Brigade of the Japanese Army bombed major buildings of Unit
731 such as the special prison, Sifanglou, frostbite laboratory, virus laboratory, and tuberculosis laboratory. On 14 August, the last of the Unit 731 staff left
Pingfang. Staff from the Mudanjiang Detachment, Linkou Detachment, Sunwu Detachment, Hailar Detachment, and the Dalian Branch also escaped after
destroying all evidence.
Massacre of Maruta: Poisonous Air and Hanging

Shirō Ishii ordered Takeo Ishii to deal with the special prison. Takeo Ishii released airborne poison in the prison to kill all maruta, and ordered soldiers to
shoot maruta, even those dead from the poisonous air. Bodies of maruta were gathered, doused with gasoline, and burnt for three days.
One veteran of Unit 731 records another bloody scenario in his memoir. Maruta were arranged in pairs and given a string and stick. Under surveillance
of the special section, standing face to face, each of the pair were looped by a noose around the neck and a stick put inside the noose. One maruta held one
end of the stick and the other maruta held another end, turning the stick in the same direction. As the stick kept turning, the noose became tighter, and the
two maruta were strangled.
Living under huge pressure, the jailed maruta could not easily survive, even if they could escape the experiments. According to investigations thus far,
none escaped Unit 731.
Three Prohibitions by Ishii

Standing on the ruins Unit 731’s station one rainy evening, Shirō Ishii gave the final order. This was three prohibitions: no one must disclose the identity of
Unit 731’s members; members must not contact each other; and members must not engage in work similar to that of Unit 731.
Ishii then boarded a flight piloted by his son-in-law, Maj. Miho Masuda, and took some last photographs of the ruins before hurriedly leaving Harbin.
Unit 731 completely ceased, and Japan surrendered on 15 August 1945. Members of Unit 731 escaped to Japan via Korea, a few were captured by the
Soviet Red Army. These captives stood trial for war crimes in 1949 in the Soviet Union, commonly known as the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials.
Some of Unit 731’s members kept the prohibitions and complied with them for a lifetime, which helped cover up the crimes that Unit 731 had
committed. Some members violated the prohibitions by engaging in work related to the nature of the unit: for example, Cdr Masaji Kitano, Education
Minister, opened hospitals, and Yoshimura, Okamoto, and Tanaka worked in medical schools. Other members maintained close connection after the war
and set up many comrade associations, including Pingfang Comrade Association, Tojō Comrade Association, Heihō Sankaku Association, Kamo
Association, Gucheng Town Association, and Linglan Association to publicly organise historically commemorative activities. Most of the members,
refusing media interviews, have kept Unit 731’s wartime secret without discernible introspection.
A very few of them, such as Yoshio Shinozuka, have told the public the truth and bared the historical facts.

Post-War Activities