When talking about the horrors of World War II, they most often mean German concentration camps. But even there there were no such atrocities as one of the divisions of the Japanese army, known as Detachment 731, became famous. Its task was to create biological weapons, its leader, General of the Medical Service, Shiro Ishii, demanded that his subordinates study the human body using the most savage methods.
Instead of 300 peasant houses
The Japanese chose to conduct the most inhuman experiments in history - testing of bacteriological weapons - on the territory of China in the province of Binjiang. Cynicism consisted in the very decision to conduct experiments on foreign territory: after all, if the bacteria accidentally break free, the inhabitants of another state will die.
In 1932, a site was prepared for a secret facility near Pingfang Station. At the same time, they burned about 300 peasant houses, whose residents were driven out into the street.
The head of the new research center was appointed Lieutenant General of the Imperial Japanese Army Shiro Ishii. Japanese Emperor Hirohito loved his project of raising plague-infested fleas. Ishii suggested filling them with bombs and dropping this load on the border Russian cities - Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Blagoveshchensk and Chita. True, laboratory fleas died during dropping and spraying. In a secret town, plague contamination trials began on captured prisoners, mainly on the Chinese.
The Ishii detachment was assigned the number 731 - this code name the Japanese called the future bacteriological weapon in the form of plague microbes. The research center occupied an area in the form of a square with sides six kilometers long, which included an airfield, a railway line, living quarters, a prison, laboratories, and a Shinto shrine. The entire area was surrounded by a barbed wire fence.
The squadron's fighter planes were responsible for shooting down any aircraft, including Japanese ones, that could detect a secret object.
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They were called "logs"
Detachment 731 employees conduct savage experiments [/img_podpis_left] In addition to working with plague bacteria, Detachment 731 was engaged in the cultivation and research of microbes of cholera, typhus, anthrax and tuberculosis. Japan was preparing to unleash a truly large-scale bacteriological war.
For experiments, laboratory staff regularly received mice, rats and guinea pigs, as well as people prisoners or even simply captured on the street. In particular, the Japanese gendarmerie sent here women and children who came to the police to learn about the fate of their relatives.
The detachment officers contemptuously called them "logs". Upon admission to the squad, all test subjects were deprived of their first and last names. Each was assigned a three-digit number, the first digit of which corresponded to a specific laboratory.
The subjects were well fed and not forced to do hard work - after all, the Japanese doctors needed the purity of the experience and the assurance that the subject died as a result of the experiment, and not from hunger or backbreaking work.
Among the prisoners were Soviet citizens who served the sections of the Chinese Eastern Railway seized by the Japanese, as well as members of their families.
According to available data, as a result of barbaric experiments, detachment 731 killed at least 3,000 people. So that prisoners do not oppose visiting laboratories, they were usually told that an order had been received to release the person, but before that, they needed to be vaccinated.
Deadly research
What experiments were carried out on living people?
They were injected with various bacteria and dismembered their bodies (without prior murder and anesthesia) in order to observe the course of the disease. In comparison, uninfected prisoners were subjected to the same procedures.
Ceramic flea bombs were regularly tested at the test site. The subjects were tied to poles at a distance of 5-10 meters from each other - and bombs were dropped at different angles and from different heights in order to obtain accurate data on the characteristics of the infection.
In addition to bacteriological, other experiments were carried out. Japanese doctors figured out what would happen if air was pumped into the patient's veins. Or how long it will take for death to happen if a person is hung upside down. Experiments were carried out in spinning in a centrifuge to understand how many hours would pass before a person dies, and how this process is accompanied. Blood was replaced with monkey blood. They dissected living people to observe any changes in the tissues of the human body.
Shiro Ishii himself was fond of studying the limits of the endurance of the human body. To this end, he cut out the organs or parts of the prisoners (lungs, liver, kidneys, one hemisphere of the brain) and observed how long people could live.
Exhibition of savage achievements
One of the premises of Detachment 731 was called the "exhibition room". Here, on numerous shelves, were glass vessels with human heads, as well as limbs and internal organs.
The room was visited by all employees of the secret detachment. This helped to accomplish several tasks at once: firstly, employees saw each other's work and could coordinate the actions of different departments. And secondly, they got used to the idea that the "logs" are inferior people, and in no case can you sympathize with them.
Suicide as a way to keep a secret
If Detachment 731's laboratories continued to work, they would, without a doubt, lead the world to a large-scale biological war.
But in August 1945, Soviet troops entered Manchuria and northern China. The Kwantung Army was defeated in just a few days. Detachment 731 received an evacuation order.
The accumulated biological materials and all documents were taken to Japan. At the same time, some of the squadron workers tried to copy and take the research data with them, hoping to later use it for further work or sale. It is known that two scientists who tried to do this were beaten by Ishii's orders, and their documents were taken away.
In addition, Ishii gave the order: to destroy all prisoners, as well as instruments, equipment and camp buildings. The prisoners were killed with poisonous gas, which was released through the ventilation system. Those who did not die immediately were shot at close range with pistols. The corpses were moved into a dug hole, doused with gasoline and set on fire. The remaining drugs and equipment were also burned.
The buildings were destroyed by explosions and the resulting fire. The command of a nearby Japanese military unit, not knowing what was happening, offered to help extinguish it - but they were told that nothing should be done. The activities of the detachment continued to remain a secret even for their own.
It was not possible to destroy the animals, the rats scattered across the neighboring fields.
Fifteen echelons were prepared for the evacuation of Detachment 731's personnel. Vials of poison were distributed to all employees and their families to die if they were captured.
The army command included these echelons in the category of vehicles of particular importance - they were allowed through in the first place. However, during the escape, the passengers of several carriages, frightened by rumors and uncertainty, collectively committed suicide.
You have a product, we have a merchant
During the evacuation, Shiro Ishii spoke to the staff. The meaning of his speech boiled down to the fact that the secret of Detachment 731 must be kept in any case. And the one who betrays it will face severe punishment.
But, as often happens, the well-known principle of life worked: the one who sets the rules lives by exception.
Returning to Japan, Ishii in the same 1945 offered the Americans all the experimental data and bacteria strains - in exchange for the fact that he would not be recognized as a war criminal and would not be brought to justice. Together with other leading specialists of Detachment 731, he moved to the United States. Subsequently, they all became successful doctors with their own clinics.
To the request of the USSR military prosecutor's office for the extradition of the officers of Detachment 731 for their trial, the American authorities replied that the whereabouts of the Japanese were unknown and that there was no reason to speak of them as war criminals.
In December 1949, a trial was held in Khabarovsk in the case of Japanese servicemen who were accused of preparing bacteriological weapons and cruel experiments on people. Of the 2,600 members of Detachment 731, only 12 were convicted; depending on the degree of guilt, they received from 2 to 25 years in prison. No one was sentenced to death, since it was abolished in the USSR in May 1947.
The cousin of the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, Prince Takeda Tsuneyoshi, who oversaw the activities of Detachment 731, did not incur any punishment and subsequently headed the Olympic Committee of his country. Dr. Shiro Ishii studied microbiology for a long time and died in Tokyo in 1959 from throat cancer.
The laws of almost all countries in the world, including the United States, prohibit experiments on humans without their written consent. Nevertheless, information about such experiments periodically hits the pages of American newspapers. In particular, in 2004, secret medical experiments were carried out on inmates of orphanages where HIV-infected are kept - they were tested on poisonous drugs, from which the children developed convulsions and swollen joints. Detachment 731's case continues to live …
Svetlana SAVICH