Unit 731 Testimony: Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program

by Hal Gold

This is a riveting and disturbing account of the medical atrocities performed in and around Japan during WWII.

Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of the continent. Far from front lines and prying eyes, Japanese doctors and their assistants subjected human guinea pigs to gruesome medical experiments.

In the first part of Unit 731: Testimony author Hal Gold draws upon a painstakingly accumulated reservoir of sources to construct a portrait of the Imperial Japanese Army's most notorious medical unit, giving an overview of its history and detailing its most shocking activities. The second half of the book consists almost entirely of the worlds of former unit members themselves, taken from remarks they made at a traveling Unit 731 exhibition held around Japan in 1994–95. These people recount their vivid first–hand memories of what it was like to cut open pregnant women as they lay awake on the vivisection table, inject plague germs into healthy farmers, and carry buckets of fresh blood and organs through corridors to their appropriate destinations.

Unit 731: Testimony represents an essential addition to the growing body of literature on the still unfolding story of one of the most infamous "military" outfits in modern history. By showing how the ethics of normal men and women, and even an entire profession, can be warped by the fire of war, this important book offers a window on a time of human madness, in the hope that such days will never come again.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Japan, World War II, War, Audiobook, True Crime

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 1996

Reviews

[Maziyar Yf · Rating 3 out of 5]

یگان یا واحد 731 ارتش ژاپن ، یکی از مخوف ترین و بدنام ترین جنایتکاران جنگی ، جنگ جهانی دوم بوده که پس از جنگ به لطف لاپوشانی مشترک آمریکا و ژاپن تا سالهای طولانی همچنان ناشناخته و گمنام باقی مانده بوده . در حالی که هولوکاست، به عنوان یکی از بزرگ‌ترین جنایات تاریخ، به طور گسترده مورد مطالعه و محکومیت قرار گرفته ، جنایات واحد 731 همچنان در سایه فراموشی باقی مانده است. این بی‌عدالتی، نه تنها به قربانیان چینی بلکه به کل بشریت توهین می‌کند. مقایسه این دو رویداد، شباهت‌های تکان‌دهنده‌ای را آشکار می‌سازد: استفاده ابزاری از انسان‌ها، بی‌رحمی بی‌حد و حصر و تلاش برای پنهان‌کاری جنایات.
نگاهی به ادبیات جهان هم نشان می دهد در حالی که تعداد کتاب های مربوط به هولوکاست ( با تمرکز بر قربانیان یهودی ) بسیار زیاد است در مقابل اما آنچه ژاپن در چین ، چه در نانجینگ وچه در منچوری کرده بسیار پوشیده و غافل مانده . گویی برای بشریت جان چینی ها و آسیایی ها چندان ارزش و اهمیتی نداشته .
واحد 731
واحد 731 ارتش ژاپن، لکه‌ای سیاه بر تاریخ بشریت است. این واحد مخوف، در جریان جنگ جهانی دوم، آزمایش‌های وحشیانه‌ای را بر روی صدها هزار انسان بی‌گناه، عمدتاً چینی‌ها، انجام داد. آزمایش‌هایی که شامل عفونت با بیماری‌های کشنده (قربانیان را به صورت عمدی به بیماری‌های واگیردار و کشنده‌ای مانند وبا، طاعون، تب زرد و آنتراکس مبتلا می‌کردند تا اثرات این بیماری‌ها بر بدن انسان و همچنین کارایی سلاح‌های بیولوژیکی را بررسی کنند. )
سرمازدگی ( قربانیان را در معرض سرما و دمای بسیار پایین قرار می‌دادند تا اثرات سرمازدگی بر بدن انسان و بهترین روش‌های درمان آن را مطالعه کنند. ) ، تشریح زنده ( بدون استفاده از بی‌حسی، اعضای بدن قربانیان را برمی‌داشتند تا واکنش‌های فیزیولوژیکی بدن را بررسی و روش‌های جدید جراحی را آزمایش کنند. ) و آزمایش‌های سموم شیمیایی ( قربانیان را در معرض گازهای سمی و مواد شیمیایی قرار می‌دادند تا اثرات کشنده و فلج‌کننده آن‌ها را بررسی کنند.) .
واحد 731 ، هم چنین علاقه بسیاری به آلوده کردن زنان به سفلیس ، از طریق آمیزش اجباری داشته و آشکار است که انجام این جنایات هولناک، با هدف توسعه سلاح‌های بیولوژیکی و شیمیایی، در سکوت و تاریکی مطلق انجام می‌شد.
سرنوشت یگان 731 ، پس از جنگ را باید ننگ دیگری در کارنامه آمریکا و ژاپن و همکاری مشترک آنها دانست . بسیاری از اعضای ارشد این واحد، به ویژه دانشمندانی که در زمینه توسعه سلاح‌های بیولوژیکی تخصص داشتند، به جای محاکمه شدن به عنوان جنایتکار جنگی، از سوی آمریکا مصونیت قضایی گرفتند. آمریکا که به دنبال اطلاعات این واحد در مورد سلاح‌های بیولوژیکی بود ، در ازای این اطلاعات، به اعضای این واحد تضمین داد که از پیگرد قانونی مصون خواهند ماند. به این ترتیب دانش و تجربیات این دانشمندان در پروژه‌های تحقیقاتی آمریکا، به ویژه در زمینه جنگ بیولوژیکی، مورد استفاده قرار گرفت.
هال گلد ، نویسنده کتاب کالبد شناسی یگان 731 ، کوشیده در سه بخش اقدامات این گردان را بررسی کند ، کتاب او را می توان به چگونگی ساختن گروه ، اقدامات و آزمایش های وحشیانه ، سرنوشت و انحلال گروه و البته مشغول به کار شدن بیشتر اعضای آن در ژاپن جدید و شرح فجایع از زبان کسانی که آن را انجام دادند ، تقسیم کرد .
خواندن کتابی با چنین مشخصاتی اعصاب و روانی از جنس آهن و فولاد می خواهد ، گرچه نویسنده با انتخاب کلامی منطقی و نسبتا بدون احساس از درد و رنج فجایع کاسته ، کتاب او در فصل دوم ، یعنی چگونگی فرایند استحاله شدن گروه کمی افت می کند ، اما فصل آخر کتاب ، چگونگی شرح شکنجه ها از زبان شکنجه گرها را باید قویترین بخش کتاب دانست خونسردی و عادی بودن بیشتر آنان ، نه همه آنها را باید مصداقی دیگر از ابتذال شر هانا آرنت دانست .
هال گلد کوشیده یگان 731 و فرمانده مخوف آن ، از تشکیل تا پایان را بررسی کند . با وجود اشکلاتی که در ویرایش کتاب ، دیده می شود ، نویسنده توانسته با جزئیات به تاریخچه، ساختار و فعالیت‌های این یگان بپردازد و تصویری واضح از جنایات آن نشان دهد .

[Sleepless Dreamer · Rating 4 out of 5]

We were studying about the Meiji Restoration in one of my classes so I was googling the Kwantung army and learned about Unit 731. It struck me as bizarre so I wanted more information. 

Unit 731 Testimony: Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program digs into the horrifying history of human experimentation during WW2 in Japan. I have to admit, I was happier before I read this book. Half of this book tells about the history of Japan's human experimentation program. The other half is testimonies of people involved, from nurses to soldiers. 

It is hard to exaggerate how horrible, disgusting and enraging this book was for me. The descriptions of the experiments made me feel sick. This idea that Japan essentially kidnapped random people from China, Korea, and Russia for this, that Japan was so focused on creating plagues and spreading disease that it was willing to do this, that people could treat other people so terribly. 

Moreover, the researchers who were in charge of this didn't actually ever pay any kind of price. After the war, many of them continued in Japan's universities.  Even now, there are so many things that are unresolved and it does not seem that Japan ever took full responsibility for this. After the war ended, Unit 731 members were given immunity in return for giving the Americans their research. Some evidence suggests the US then used this biological warfare information in their war in Korea. Again, can't exaggerate how sick this book made me feel.  

Essentially, Japan became concerned about plagues so it started doing intense research about epidemiology. During the war, this interest switched from defense to offense and damn, Japan did not hold back. Although the Geneva Accords were signed at 1925, the author suggests that the ban on biological warfare merely meant the Japanese understood its great power. 

I was shocked to read about the way the army and the universities cooperated on this. It turns out I still have some faith in universities as leaders, as moral and academic role models. There's a point where the author writes that there was a demand by the researchers and the army could fulfill the supply. As an Economics student, this brought me back to the way that's exactly how the free market works and that this really shows why limits matter.
 
I think Covid's existence made this book feel terribly real. I mean, you don't need to experience a pandemic in order to understand why biological warfare is bad but my, experiencing a pandemic definitely puts an emphasis on it. We all inherently understand the danger of invisible diseases now, that fear of dying from something we can't control or even entirely understand. We don't need to work very hard to envision how biological warfare could do awful things to a country.  

To conclude, I have way too much morbid curiosity and one day this book will probably give me nightmares. If, for some reason, you are also interested in learning more about Japan's human experimentation program, I think this book is good, in the sense that it discusses a wide range of topics. I especially appreciated reading the testimonies. It's not very detailed and sometimes gets into tangents but it's readable and informative.

What I'm Taking With Me
- Here I am, beating myself up because it's 3pm and I haven't been productive enough today (ughh, mid semester burnout) while there are Japanese men who have never felt guilty for their actual crimes against humanity. 
- I got to the middle of the book and thought, "surely, it can't get much worse" and then came all of the rape descriptions.
- Even up until 1998, Japan tried to claim this never happened. In 2018, they finally released the names of the 3,607 people who took part in Unit 731. I just, I wonder if this thing is a bigger conversation in Asia, if there are people who know victims. Like thousands of people just disappeared into these programs, aren't people figuring out who were the victims?

-------------------
The downside of trying to read a book from every country is that occasionally I'll read a book that showcases the absolute worst of a country and it'll just ruin everything I already know about that country for me. In other words, what the heck, Japan?

Review to come!

[The Brain in the Jar · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the anime Paranoia Agent, the state of victimhood rescues people. People suffer from all kinds of stress – sometimes personal, sometimes moral – and and an American-looking dude hits them with a baseball bat. Once they get hit and fall unconscious, no one really cares about their past life. It’s all about helping the poor victims.

I don’t know how much the creator knew about Unit 731, but that anime is obviously tied to the atom bomb. Saying the atom bomb rescued the Japanese from admitting their war crimes may sound obscene, but isn’t there some truth to that? How many people know about the atomic bomb and how many know about their aggression in China in general? For example, in Israeli history students learn about the atom bomb but not one thing is said about the rape of Nanking or Unit 731. We see movies about the Holocaust often. Is there an internationally recognized day for the victims of Japan?

This isn’t about whether America should’ve bombed Japan or not. It’s an interesting, difficult discussion we mustn’t avoid – but it belongs in a different book. It’s about understanding what can drive people to do such horrors. The book doesn’t relish the gore on display. there are some juicy details – babies being bathed in frozen water, a person being constantly executed and somehow never dying, diseased people forced to have sex and then give birth. The point is more about shocking you that yes, people can do these things.

Haven’t we learned this lesson from the Nazis? Yes, we did. The difference is, the Nazis were losers and were the villain. Stories about the Holocaust may horrify us, but we often distance ourselves by painting the Germans as a bunch of villains smokin’ cigars and laughing maniacally. Japan were supposed to be victims. When one country – and the losing country at that – does it it’s just villainy. When a people that are supposed to be victims do it and the winners sweep it under the rug, it becomes scary.

When people object to the ‘tyranny of science’, they may sound like a bunch of crazy luddites. The scientific theory is one of the integral pillars of civilization. It’s hard to imagine where we’d be without science. No idea is safe from corruption, though. The idea of people torturing and inflicting pain in the name of science may seem like recipe for a cartoonish villain in a Hollywood movie.

That’s reality, though. One reason Unit 731 was allowed to remain hidden was because the data was precious enough. The scientists were given immunity if they handed over all the information they received. Many of them went to acquire high positions in Japan, especially academic positions. Even the history of something as great as science is stained by blood.

It’s a perfect example of how horrible war is. Since the data from Unit 731 was pretty useful for biological warfare, many of the masterminds could go on with their lives, being scientists if they handed their data. In a way, they got redeemed because of the action that demands redemption. Imagine if Dr. Mengale was given a high position in a university because he made some scientific discoveries.

The history is fairly brief, since the main role of the book is to deliver the testimonies. It’s a good piece of history, but not a very detailed one. As an introduction into the topic though, it’s good enough. The writing is precise, not too filled with jargon and the story is fairly easy to follow. The book creates a unique niche of itself in the literature of Unit 731 – by providing an easy introduction and a more personal look.

As for the testimonies themselves, what Gold says in the introduction is true. They’re messy, sometimes a bit incoherent. That’s okay since they’re speeches by people who are trying to remember a horrible event from a long time ago. The messiness of it also comes from how the people in the unit didn’t know what they were doing. The testimonies come mostly from low-level workers. The masters weren’t going to risk their position in Japan.

Some testimonies are better than others, but I understand the inclusion of them all. Unit 731 was destroyed. Everything was blown up and footage and pictures were hidden or destroyed, too. We will never have access to the full story, so we must make do with the little we have. Don’t expect to get a coherent story out of these. It’s a collection of anecdotes, but fascinating ones.

They’re presented with a minimalism that’s frightening. Imagine if Raymond Carver wrote a collection of short stories about people in a laboratory conducting these experiments. Then again, what other way is there to tell these stories? They’re blunt. Details aren’t gory, they’re just there. Some horrors cannot be painted with any language. You cannot express being horrified and you can’t tell the full details. Just saying they forced diseased people to have sex is enough to cause a shock.

It’s soaked in pain. Reading this book is both easy and difficult. The language is as minimalistic as a hard-boiled thriller, but to know so much pained was caused by human beings can be too much. As harsh as they are, we need these stories of pain. This book is an anti-war book. If there was no war, it’s possible Unit 731 wouldn’t have existed.

Now, I don’t think we can just lay down our arms and war would be over. Both sides need to lay down their arms for this to happen. Yet what will cause them to do it? At some point, I don’t think ideological or territorial conflicts matter much. We need to stare at the abyss without blinking, without romanticizing it or dramatizing it. We need the cold, hard facts of how much pain war causes. It really doesn’t matter whether Japan should be hated for what they did, or be forgiven because they got the atom bomb. What matters is we humans are capable of producing such pain, but no one wants to suffer through this. Until all of us – and I’m including every single continent, since the narrative is of ‘Evil West’ is too easy to swallow – are horrified by war, it won’t stop.

Reading about Unit 731 is essential. This far into human history, it’s time to know exactly how much pain war causes. War doesn’t only result in people shooting each other. Civilians are murdered in their homes. Great ideas like science are being abused. Schools today preach a lot about the glory of programming and getting your own start-up company. I don’t think this is what will prevent another Unit 731.

4 out of 5

Also posted in my blog:
https://brainweapons.wordpress.com/20...

[Stefania Dzhanamova · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Unit 731 Testimony" reveals shocking details about Japan's human experimentation program during the Second World War.

Hal Gold begins his interesting story with the noble background of Japanese biological warfare: Japan's progressive military medicine. In the Russo-Japanese war and the war with China in 1894, Japan put into use the most elaborate and effective system of sanitation that had ever been practiced in war, and the deaths caused by desease were dramatically reduced as compared to earlier wars.
This success in minimalizing deaths from illness proved that the Japanese were correct in attaching equal priority to germs and bullets, and soon after the Russo-Japanese war's end, a Department of Field Disease Prevention was established. This move, however, happened to have a dark side: the original bacteriological aims of Japan were soon to be warped in the direction of causing, rather than preventing and curing, disease.
Next, Gold introduces the main character, Ishii Shiro, a pushy, self-conceited men, whose sick ideas about bacteriological and gas warfare unfortunately were in consort with the climate he found in Japan when he returned in 1930 from an extensive tour overseas, on which he went in order to further chemical and biological warfare as Japan's military orthodoxy.
It is Ishii Shiro who created the heinous human experimentation laboratories and the top-secret Unit 731 that comprised the military and civilian doctors, nurses, and other personnel of the laboratories.

Han Gold doesn't mince his words and discribes in shocking detail the dehumanization of the prisoners who were used as specimens for the experiments and the experiments themselves. That people weren't even considered human is evident in the name used for them: masuta (logs). The experiments varied from infecting whole groups with plague and leaving them to die in severe pain to starving them to death to dissectings them alive without anaesthetics.
Gold has traced in great detail the whole complex system of Unit 731, from the transportation of Manchurian masuta to the labs to the cultivation of plague-infected rats and floes in occupied Singapore to the involvement of Japanese high-schoolers and university students in the dark deeds of the unit.

The most shocking part of the book are maybe the personal testimonies of former unit members, Youth Corps boys, frightening kenpaitai police officers, who sent prisoners to a horrible death in the laboratories, and others that have taken part in this brutal war crime. The accounts of all those people, most of whom had vowed to carry this secret to the grave but couldn't endure such a heavy burden, were all crucial proof for the existence of Japanese human experimentation during WWII, which had been omitted from History textbooks in post-war Japan.

Han Gold's book is a highly disturbing history of a war crime that must be widely acknowledged lest it repeats itself. "Unit 731 Testimony" includes a lot of graphic descirptions of the barbarious experiments, so be aware: it is a tough read and not for the weak-hearted.

This book impressed me so much that I can write volumes about it. Highly recommendable.

[Robert Bevill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Unit 731 was a horrifying place, but because its crime were neither by or against Americans, there's not a lot of English-published material about it. This book aims to translate a lot of the testimonies given by people who were involved in the program. At times, it feel more like a reference book, containing a lot of information but lacking a narrative focus. That doesn't make it a poor read, just that it wasn't as engaging as I would have liked. Still, I learned a lot, and I would definitely recommend it to people interested in the subject.

[Ryan Howell · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that overall Japan gets a pass outside of Bataan and Pearl Harbor. They were equally if not more sadistic than Nazi Germany during the 30s and 40s.

This book details what exactly Unit 731 did to the people of China. It is not for the faint of heart but it is important for people to read. A case study on how depraved humanity can become when you see a people group as lesser or subhuman.

Didn't love the format Hal set it up breaking it up into the history of the Unit and then testimonies from individuals who were connected to the unit. I would prefer the testimonies to be intermixed with the narrative.

Still a fascinating read.

[David Clouse · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's tough rating this book because it's pretty dark. It gets a four stars because it's a comprehensive look at Japan's unit 731 and very informative, but at times the writing was translated from Japanese to English and just sometimes a bit boring in style or hard to follow. That being said, again, this was a very informative book on what happened in Japan during WWII. Very sad and hard to read at times, but I think necessary to acknowledge the reality of evil and suffering in the world. This book shows how Japan went from extremely kind to others and seeking to develop resistances and vaccines against biological threats, to extreme evil of conducting tests on humans and using biological warfare to destroy cities and populations. I think it's always important to never think we could never do these terrible things because time and time again, we see that normal everyday people get roped into this whether willingly or unwillingly.

[Dachokie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Wound That Still Festers ..., December 26, 2010

Surprisingly little mention is made of Japanese atrocities committed during their "divine expansion" in the 1930s and 1940s; especially in the Western Hemisphere, where the Holocaust and Nazi brutality are so well-documented they seem to provide the very definition of "atrocity". Arguably, no country suffered longer in World War II than China, starting with Japan's occupation of Manchuria throughout the final days of World War II. Some of the horrors inflicted upon the Chinese have been made more public in the last few decades (most notably, the "Rape of Nanking"), but the historical evidence documenting the extent of Japanese atrocities (including biological and chemical warfare testing) during World War II pales in comparison to the insurmountable evidence that successfully prosecuted Germany of its wartime crimes. Hal Gold's book on Japan's highly secretive Unit 731 sheds some light on a particularly sinister segment of the Japanese war machine that is almost as hard to believe as it is disturbing.

It actually took a viewing of the movie "Men Behind the Sun" to inspire me to read into the mysterious Unit 731 and its actions during World War II. The movie depicts quite a disturbing tableau of despicable atrocities inflicted upon Chinese civilians to advance Japan's chemical and biological warfare research. I chose Hal Gold's book as an overview of Unit 731 mainly because of its format. "Unit 731 Testimony" was written after Japan had organized a national exhibit about Unit 731 to remind its citizens of the horrible crimes Japan had committed during the war; a historical fact that had been virtually ignored. Gold chose to separate his book into two segments:
1) Historical overview of Unit 731; its origins, purpose, structure and activities. Included is the lingering impact of the organization well after it disbanded to this day.
2) The actual testimony collected during the exhibit of individuals who served Unit 731 either directly or indirectly. This section lends both emotional and supportive context to the historical information outlined in the first part of the book.

The information Gold lays forth in the first part of "Unit 731 Testimony" is both eye-opening and provocative. Unit 731 is defined as the secretive segment of the Japanese Army specifically designed to carry out biological and chemical warfare research and development ... through the use of human test subjects. Though Unit 731 is dispersed throughout the expanded Japanese empire during World War II, most of the research was conducted at its base in Manchuria. The test subjects used to conduct this research included many nationalities, the majority being Chinese and Korean. The four areas of experimentation included: Cholera, Epidemic Hemorrhagic Fever, frostbite and plague. Gold provides ample examples of humans subjected to some of the crudest and cruelest testing methods performed by a modernized country I've ever read about. Some examples include: direct injection of a pathogen, contamination of water supplies, merging plague-infected fleas in rat colonies and vivisections. The test-subjects were young, old, male and female ... pregnant women and their unborn were not off-limits. Some of the most disturbing experimentation detailed was the research involving frostbite. To say the least, the barbarity involved in this research rivals anything documented by Nazi Germany's infamous Joseph Mengele.

When the war ends, the unit disbands and attempts to destroy everything; all members swear to keep their secrets until death. Gold then introduces the American occupation of Japan and the Cold War as a means for both the United States and the Soviet Union to reap benefits from Unit 731 research. With this, Gold lays forth a provocative conspiracy-theory that includes the United States granting immunity to Unit 731 survivors for their research data. Adding to the intrigue is that most surviving members of Unit 731 became highly compensated and successful medical and educational professionals after the war.

The testimony section of the Gold's book is not as compelling as the first part, but it does provide some indication of the mentality of those involved in conducting the cruel research and how they've lived with it over the years. Although some remorse is indicated, most believed they were merely performing their wartime duty for Japan.

While there may be other sources that detail more of Unit 731 and its deeds, I felt the Hal Gold's "Unit 731 Testimony" provided a great overview of the subject matter ... enough to make me want to learn even more about this highly secretive and deadly organization.

[Anna Kaling · Rating 1 out of 5]

It's important that these testimonies are read and the existence and activities of Unit 731 aren't swept under the carpet.

But this is not the book to bring Unit 731 into the public eye. The material is badly arranged and presented. The narrative is disjointed and bland, and doesn't give any more information that you can get from Unit 731's wikipedia article. In fact the whole book felt like an internet search, flitting from one topic to another with no flow.

[Klara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This. Is. Disturbing. I was unaware of Japan’s war crimes and human experimentation history. The accounts are horrifying, with acts as heinous and inhumane as those of the Nazi’s - perhaps even more sadistic!

Essential historical reading but only for those who can stomach torture and gross apathy. Check trigger warnings.

[Chrissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had only heard of Unit 731 recently, so I was interested to read this book when I spotted it included with my Audible membership. The book includes first hand accounts of actual participants in the program- only the Japanese occupiers though, the victims all died, without exception. I am not particularly squeamish, but I did have to pause occasionally, as the details of the experiments are frank and brutal. I know about Josef Mengele and his human experiments, but I find it astounding that these horrific events were so successfully kept quiet. I am now informed. The book did its job.

NB: If you are upset by extremely graphic descriptions of, effectively, gruesome torture of innocent human beings, I would dissuade you from reading this book.

[Fede · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good introduction to the subject, short but very interesting- the main problem being the little information available and the difficulties in gathering testimonies and documents, which - until at least the mid 90s - made it impossible for the public at large to know about Unit 731 and the historical context that allowed it existence.
The second part (a collection of former members' testimonies) is particularly explicit, with plenty of disturbing details describing human experimentation activities and biological warfare as seen by the perpetrators themselves. None of the prisoners who were used as lab specimens could be interviewed, since there were no survivors among them.

[richa ⋆.˚★]

Unit 731 has to be one of the gruesome part of history that is often talked less. When I first read about it, I found it impossible to see people get away doing murders without much consequence. In the name of experiments and research, estimated 3000 to 300000 people were affected. Live surgeries and dissections without administering any anesthesia, plague infected fleas were air dropped, cholera and typhoid was cultivated and then infected into potable water. None of the inmates lived and it was reduced to radio silence. It sowed the seeds of biological and chemical warfare. Hell on Earth.

I found the book unorganised and more of collection of data rather than a chronological narration. I will continue to read more to do a deep dive.

[Fauwxx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Non-Fiction, nightmare fuel for history buffs.
.
I first heard about this book from a documentary I watched, and my demented brain wanted to read it immediately. The first half of this book gives you the Who's Who of Unit 731, and the second half is real accounts from staff and victims of Unit 731. There is one account that has been living rent free in my head since I read it. Definitely a mind blowing read.

[Keen Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars!

“The Chinese had a saying about us, that Japan had a ‘three-way complete policy: burned completely, killed completely, and pillaged completely.’ Yet, when we were doing those things, we had no sense of guilt or of doing anything wrong. It was for the emperor-for the country!”

Unit 731 remains one of the darkest and least known chapters of Japan’s occupation of Manchuria. This may be due in part to the US’s role in striking a deal with the head researchers. In exchange for handing over the results from their horrendous war crimes, General Douglas MacArthur allowed all the main people involved at the highest level, to walk away absolutely free and not have to face any consequences whatsoever.

This book is a truly shocking piece of modern history. As Gold points out, the Japanese were previously renowned for behaving with the highest standard of conduct in relation to the treatment of their prisoners, making a sustained effort to treat and heal any enemies injured in conflict, which makes this extreme change of behaviour all the more shocking and puzzling by comparison. Their benign policy was to take a sickening change, largely through the philosophy and aspirations of one, Ishii Shiro. Shiro was the man heading up Unit 731. Gold gives us an informative biography on the man, showing how he came to head up this project.

The chilling efficiency and calculated cruelty in which the Japanese planned and carried out everything, is frankly terrifying. They covered all bases, from the installation of central heating to keeping all the prisoners well fed, even giving them alcohol, in order to keep them healthy, so they could get better quality feedback with their upcoming experiments. After the main building had been built, a rumour soon circulated that it was a timber mill, this lead to the Japanese referring to the prisoner/victims as logs.

Unit 731 wasn’t just confined to Harbin and Pingfang, they had many satellite facilities dedicated to various other branches of biological warfare in Anda, Xinjing, Guangzhou, Beijing, Okunoshima and Singapore, each location dealing with specific aspects of the programme. These places were busy finding the most cost effective and devastating ways of spreading cholera, EHF (Epidemic Haemorrhagic Fever), the plague and other diseases. They also conducted a number of sickening experiments on people with frostbite. As gold points out, the Japanese medical community must have been aware that much of the results from experiments they were receiving were from live human subjects, and yet they accepted this. Gold summarises, saying, “A sad testament to the lack of conflict between the ethical standards of the medical world in Japan and those of Unit 731.”

The second part of this book is dedicated to the testaments of some of the surviving people who were part of the project in one capacity or another. Some of the revelations are genuinely shocking, ranging from stories of experiments done on babies, to other awful acts like venturing out into remote Mongolian villages and poisoning the water supply, killing innocent people. One man recalls being forced to practise live bayoneting on 17-18 year old teenagers, and one crying out “Mama Mama.” before he stopped breathing and it was then he realised that the word for mother was the same in Japanese. There were often cases too, where holes were dug and men positioned on their knees above them, only for higher ranking officials to behead the people for nothing more than pure pleasure.

“Go ahead and kill me, but please don’t kill my child!” said one woman, who woke up during a vivisection, before she was put back under. She was just one of many women who were deliberately infected with venereal diseases. This woman was actually one of the more fortunate victims, as often the vivisections were done on live people. Chinese, Russian and Korean ‘comfort women’ (women forced into prostitution to service the Japanese army) were forced at gun point into sex with men infected with venereal disease, so they could study the progress of the disease on their body and vital organs, before performing live vivisections.

One 68 year old man was injected with the plague, but survived and so was subjected to the phosgene gas test. He survived that, so an army doctor injected air into his veins, but still couldn’t kill him. He then made a second attempt with an extra heavy needle with more air, but still, he survived and so they eventually killed him by hanging him from a nearby tree.

A Korean translator who was so traumatised by his forced role in dealing with the patients, that he faked appendicitis, giving him sick leave and a chance to escape. “He was caught by kenpeitai (military police) officers and given the water torture with hot peppers mixed into the water. This caused him permanent lung damage, and he has been in and out of the hospital for the past fifty years.”

No one knows the exact number of deaths related to the whole sickening project, as most records and evidence were destroyed by the Japanese, but the numbers run well into the thousands. Thousands alone were subjected to live vivisections and others were bombed, gassed, shot and tortured in other ways. One truly depressing aspect to the whole subject, is how many of the people involved went onto flourishing careers afterwards. Hundreds of them went onto enjoy respect in well paid positions, going onto practise medicine and in some cases earn prestigious positions like heading up medical research lab work. Though this wasn’t the case of Shiro, who struggled to re-adjust to post-war life and eventually died of throat cancer at the age of 67 in 1959.

In the end it was the Russians who eventually brought some of the lower ranking Japanese participants to justice, through the Khabarovsk Trials in 1949. All 12 men put on trial were found guilty and were punished accordingly. These trials were dismissed by the West as communist propaganda. Either way, both the US and the USSR used the data gathered from Unit 731 to help build their own biological weapons during the Cold War, and the Japanese have done their best to keep it all quiet, filing it under the same secret shame folder, that hides the enslavement of Comfort Women, the Nanking Massacre and the The Burma-Siam Death Railway.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rounded up to 3.5 stars. This book succeeds in what it sets out to do: make people aware, and (as much as can be possible) make history remember the atrocities of human experimentation within Japan’s Unit 731.

Oddly enough, I ended up reading this book after reading Jordan Peterson’s first book (well, not Maps of Meaning but his first Twelve Rules for Order book). He mentions quite a bit about the human race’s capacity for evil, and cites Unit 731 during WWII as one of those examples of unspeakable evils.

Unspeakable, quite literally. Although this book is written in very elementary language - one of my main gripes - it still finally pays minimal respect to the victims of Unit 731 by many of its former members acknowledging that this happened (something still denied by the Japanese government!) and speaking on (many on the condition of anonymity) what they witnessed, as well as what war crimes they personally carried out. It didn’t need to be written in such plain terms as I don’t find it to be at all suitable for all audiences. Yes, at some point everyone should learn about this sordid history, but I hardly find it digestible for elementary school students.

It was also bothersome to me because I believe they had mentioned many of these men - and a few women - to be speaking out as a way of finally expressing the remorse they felt and relieving themselves of their guilt. I watched a few YouTube videos on many of the same subjects speaking out, and I didn’t at all see or hear any remorse in most of their tones of voice. Same as with the book. I feel many are or became religious men, and clearly knowing that what they did was evil, they were simply “repenting” because so many of them were in their 80s at the time of the book’s publication (which I believe was around 1995-1996, so most are long gone now). So you could say they were merely trying to alleviate themselves of guilt and express remorse as a way of “confessing their sins” and being forgiven and allowed into Heaven, or wherever they believed they’d end up after death.

It’s just hard to believe someone is remorseful when they are speaking of the most gruesome experiments on Chinese and Russian prisoners as if they are talking about the weather. I understand that the Japanese Army thought of the prisoners in the experiments at the time as “maruta” (the Japanese word for “logs”) meaning, they were subhuman. Lower than any animal; they were simply logs. Maybe that was the word at the time, and to recount one’s experience it would have to be mentioned, but it seems as if they could have mentioned it once then went on to refer to them as the PEOPLE they dissected while they were alive. But nope, they continued to call them maruta from the beginning of their stories to the end.

They seemed (with a few accounts which genuinely seemed remorseful) to still hold onto the idea that what they were doing there may have been cruel, but it was necessary at the time. A professor emeritus of an esteemed Japanese university puts it best when he explains it this way:

“I believe that the Unit 731 research facilities were possibly the best in the world at the time. After they were blown up at the end of the war, the facts were revealed. This is a scar on Japanese medicine, but it goes beyond being a mere scar. Unit 731 came about as a result of the medical thinking in Japan.

Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity: “What would happen if we did such and such?” What medical purpose would be served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play.”

It is a quick read, but even written in a very dry, non-emotional manner, the subject matter is extremely horrific and wasn’t something I wanted to read very much of at a time. I guess it depends on how much you can stomach at a time. Oh, and if you’re wondering how thousands of Japanese took part in this human experimentation/research and got away with it without being tried as war criminals... just thank the good ol’ USA! We offered the former members of Unit 731 full immunity from prosecution of war crimes, given they allowed us exclusive, sole access to their research and experimentations. This led to many/most of them going on to build lucrative, successful careers and be honored with some of the highest and most esteemed medals in medical research. To say they lived happy and great lives after these unspeakable evils they committed would be a massive understatement.

[Quantum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Significance
First-hand accounts by Japanese army Unit 731 members who conducted or were closely involved in human experiments in WWII published by a reputable publisher, Tuttle. These first-hand accounts are from the Unit 731 Exhibition that took place in Japan during 1993 and 1994. Furthermore, many other books that cover this period make evidential reference to this work in order to support their statements.

Artwork/Writing/Narrative/Organization
Very good organization and substantiation as follows:
* Historical introduction and overview of Japanese military biological and chemical warfare.
* Several chilling pictures.
* Detailed description about how the US decided not to prosecute Unit 731 members for war crimes.
* List of living, former members and their current occupations.
* The very real and consequently chilling interviews with mostly low-ranking members--everyday people as opposed to leaders from which much history is usually drawn.

Personal Notes
How can we truly know ourselves as human beings if we don't know history? I would also highly recommend Japan at War: An Oral History, which also gives first-hand accounts of common, everyday people--both victims and perpetrators of violence.

How can we comprehend the breadth of our actions--the compassionate and monstrous--without acknowledging our history? When we, as individuals and as a nation, consider going to war, we must understand what we are capable of doing to each other.

[Carina · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m rating this less on the writing and more on the upsetting but important to reveal / make more well known the facts and first hand accounts from this book. It should be talked about with the same frequency as the holocaust so that these mistakes are never made again.

[Logan Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent account of the brutal history of Unit 731, the Japanese human experimentation program that was (mostly) based in occupied China in the 1930s and 40s. I appreciated the attempt at objectivity, though I think some of the history is so incredibly damning, especially against the US government's willingness to let all the horrible shit these monsters did slide for access to all of that blood-drenched data (for later use in the Korean and Vietnam Wars), that it was difficult for Gold to not sound biased. I have to say, after reading this book, it is clear the only groups interested in justice when it came to Unit 731 were the Soviet Union and the CPC. Instead of justice, the US let the worst of the worst war criminals live respectable careers in academia and medicine, with some of them starting pharmaceutical companies that are major players in Japan today (like Green Cross). I also appreciated that half of the book was devoted to testimonials from actual members of Unit 731 or people who worked with them. It was very interesting to hear their perspective.

My only major complaint is about contextualization in China. Between 1911-1949, China developed from a civil war into a civil war within a foreign invasion, then into a civil war within a foreign occupation within a world war. It was very multi-faceted, but Gold did not bother to explain any of this context, and in fact barely mentioned the communist forces at all (though the only time he did was very positive: he said they treated Japanese POW's very humanely). The testimonials talked more about the PLA, but I think given that most of the victims of Unit 731 were Chinese, more attention should have been given to the actual situation in China as well.

Nevertheless, I am glad I read this, and I think it is an important book that anyone interested in 20th century history should read.

[Oscar Owen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very readable and engrossing look into some of the most heinous crimes of the Second World War, the difficult subject matter is handled remarkably well and makes for very interesting reading, a very important book

[Nazrul Buang · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to learn more about Japan's war crimes during World War II, and I came across this book by accident.

Unit 731 is a term that would make a lot of people - especially Japanese and Chinese people - uncomfortable. It is a topic of great contention, and debate rages on even to today. It was the site for Japan's human experimentation on prisoners - mostly of Chinese, Korean and Russian descent - during World War II. This book details the history behind the unit, seeking to expose the truth and imploring readers to learn from it.

Human experimentation is an abhorrent idea. Yet, when discussing topics on the war, it seems like an inevitable topic to touch on. Japan is guilty for its deplorable war crimes, the most controversial one being the Rape of Nanking (the validity of the claims surrounding this event exists even to this day). Unit 731 arguably has garnered less attention than Nanking, but that is not to say that the heinous experiments conducted on humans and the creation of biological weapons there were not as vile.

This is a history written in the style of a documentary. The language used is simple; it feels as though it was conceived for middle school students, so it's highly readable for readers (of mature age, of course; I don't think the contents are appropriate for middle school students). The descriptions are succinct, and the overall tone is impartial. This is a classic history textbook without any kind of sensationalism. It balances readability with accuracy, and I appreciate that part. At the same time unfortunately, because of its textbook-like neutral descriptive tone, the book hardly makes for an intriguing read. There are still the fair share of dry details, perhaps as expected from an impartial history book.

History is important because it's about humans learning past mistakes. Unit 731 was a dark time, and a shameful part of Japan's history. Yet, it should not be something to be swept under the rug; if anything, it should be discussed to the public, for them to know and understand what was committed so that they won't be repeated again. The experiments conducted on human subjects inside the walls of Unit 731 were despicable, but perhaps the bigger shock was how the perpetrators were offhand about running their experiments. It's reminiscent of the Hannah Arendt's idea of banality of evil: the amazing thing about it all was not how evil they were, but how apathetic they were towards human suffering.

Truth be told, I've never heard of Unit 731 before but after reading it (and learning how my home country Singapore was involved in it), I'm glad to have come across this book and read it on a whim, despite the gory details.

[Dan R. Celhay · Rating 4 out of 5]

So the Japanese also had their special facilites in Manchuria for testing bioweapons. Unlike the Russians, they performed testing on humans, mostly Chinese prisoners. The main objective was to kill a large number of people at the lowest possible cost, so they worked mostly with Plague on rats and fleas.

Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. Like the frostbite experiments, beheadings or a combination of shooting, amputation, asphyxiation, so on. Some of the executions were mere entertainment.

One funny thing that the book mentions is that AIDS was more likely developed in Fort Detrick and that "somehow" it spread from there. A bioweapon has to be fast, the Russians discarded it back when Biopreparat since it takes a long time to become lethal, unless you can somehow make it more virulent and combine it with another infection...

The Japanese did not felt any guilt during their work at Unit 731 or that they were doing anything wrong until years after they were questioned about it because "it was for the emperor—for the country!"

[black_thunder ⚡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

USA jest potężne, wiadomo ale wiecie co ? Nie chce sobie nawet wyobrażać jak wyglądałby świat gdyby Japonia dopuściła się ataku bronią bakteriologiczną na US. Może świata jaki znamy już by nie było?

Uwielbiam Japonię nie za ich rozwój technologiczny, militarny czy idealne miejsce do życia. Kocham ją za duchowość, uprzejmość ludzi, estetykę, naturę, kuchnię …
Wiem jednak że ma ona bardzo ciemne strony. Jedna z nich jest historia wojny: jednostki 731, kult cesarza, rasizm względem innych nacji za czasów wojny. Wiem też, że prawdopodobnie gdyby nie ta wojenna przeszłość, Japonia mogłaby być zupełnie innym krajem.

„Ludzie, którzy wielokrotnie robią coś złego, nie zapamiętują tych czynności. Nie ma się poczucia, że robi się coś złego. Na tym również polega wojna. Wojna to nie tylko strzelanie.”

„Zanim ten chłopak […] słyszałem jak woła : „Mamo, mamo”, i zdałem sobie sprawę, że w Chinach mamę woła się tak samo jak w Japonii.”

[millie]

dnf @ 27% ... poorly written and organized so im done

[Masoud · Rating 4 out of 5]

مکمل کتاب "کارخانه های مرگ" .
محتوای خاطرات دکترها، پرستارها و نگهبانها و عملکرد این یگان خیلی دارک بود متاسفانه..

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

“People who repeat evil acts do not remember them. They have no sense of doing wrong. War means this, also.”

Be warned: This is not for the faint of heart but it’s both important and necessary that we learn unpleasant history, so it doesn’t repeat itself. Unit 731 was a top-secret Japanese research facility that operated from 1936-1945. It was essentially a concentration camp of Chinese, Korean, and Russian citizens who were held prisoner and experimented on in Japan’s pursuit of biological weapons. Prisoners were infected with various diseases, used as human flea farms, and were subject to other insane tortures under the guise of medical and hygiene research. Over 300,000 died from the Unit’s deliberate spreading of disease, 10,000 prisoners were executed and 3,000 perished from gruesome experimentation. There are no survivors of Unit 731—when Japan lost the war, those who remained where killed.

Because there were no survivors and Truman concealed the crimes of the perpetrators, the only information we have on the Unit is from those who later confessed out of guilt. The second half of the book details the testimonies of these individuals and most put distance between themselves and their actions, claiming they didn’t actually know what the unit was for.

As for the overall quality of the book, it wasn’t that great—the first half was just context and it felt like it was written by AI. The phrasing of sentences was strange, and it had more opinions than I’m used to seeing in a history book. The way some of the information was framed felt quite speculative and granted, we don’t have much information on what occurred and to this day the topic is still politically sensitive and therefore not fully disclosed, so speculation is bound to happen but I think Gold is leading the horse a bit.

There is a strong sense from the testimonies that many felt (and still feel) that if the experimentation had solely been in pursuit of vaccinations, it would have been acceptable which is wild. There was a crazy part of one testimony that read:

“Some of the experiments had nothing to do with advancing the capability of germ warfare, or of medicine. There is such a thing as professional curiosity… What medical purpose would be served by performing and studying beheadings? None at all. That was just playing around. Professional people, too, like to play.

I think this was worth reading because I haven't found a book on this topic that has as good of a goodreads ratings. It seems like much of the discourse on this subject has yet to be translated to English. Or I could be an idiot. Very plausible. But it was compelling to learn about and it's important to acknowledge war crimes and America's role in covering them up, and is a solemn reminder of the importance of ethics in medicine.

[Garrett · Rating 3 out of 5]

## The Book in 1 Sentence
A wave top review of the atrocities in human experimentation and torture, along with the details of the USA vs. USSR fight for Japanese scientist that committed those heinous acts.

## Brief Review
I feel like this book took so much time to tell us so little. There is a lot of how the politics were played out in Japan, when the Allies came, and between the US and USSR. The stories at the end are interesting, but doesn't provide the insight I was looking for.

## Why I Read this book
I knew that some of the experiments that were done provided remedies to things now and I was hoping to learn more about that.

## In-Depth Review (Favorite Quotes)
I think this book was presented as something like [[Operation Paperclip]], full of the details of what they did, why they did it, how they did it, and what the experiments have provided the future. However, that information was skimpy and you have more about the US politics to hide information from the USSR than anything like that.

For context, the German experiences described in Operation Paperclip, were things that allowed the world to have air and space travel. I know that the experiments by the Japanese gave us a lot of Information about frostbite, but it is only alluded to and passively dropped rather than explained.

The stories at the end have a sensationalism to them that I can't tell if it is because of time or how the sources were providing the information. There is something that while heinous and disastrous, feels either toned down or expanded on for one reason or another.

## [Rating](https://epicscreentime.com/rating-rules)
I think my issue is that I went into this book expecting something it wasn't. However, even looking at what it is, there feels like a lot is missing. I would have rather the stories be used as a narrative that the political information was framed around than just placed at the end. Maybe the author wasn't sure of the authenticity too and so wanted them for context, but couldn't use them for reality. I am giving this a 6 as it just felt light.

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[Chris Claypole · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whew! It is heavy material. I thought I knew of how bad things were, but the depth of depravity that was revealed in this book DID come as a shock.
Most of the period pieces I have read cover the European theater and the Nazi war crimes extensively, but only gave a brief mention of the Japanese atrocities that happened prior to and during the war.
This goes head first into the topic and you get to grasp exactly how extensive it went. It also covers briefly the amount of cover-up that occurred both internally and externally after the war ended. The fact that more value was placed on the information than that of the lives lost is just as shocking as the atrocious actions that were committed.
If you are interested in history, or even want to get a better view of how our modern world has reached the point it has then this book will help. You will gain an understanding of the views that are behind the actions and why it wasn't discussed. You will also get a glimpse into the reasons cited for the trade of information and immunity.

[Teo · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off, I’m gonna say don’t listen to this in audio format. I’m not quite sure if it was just a me problem or not, but I had the struggle of my life concentrating on it. I even replayed a 40min long chapter to see if I would feel less lost, and let’s just say it didn’t work lol. I do think the way it was written is largely to blame, in defense of myself. There’s a lot of information with many sources and interviewees that is said so dryly and repetitively that the majority of the time I hadn’t a clue what was going on. Having no visual way to check who was talking meant it was over for me. Even with the extremely harrowing events being recalled, I felt so detached just because it was so dry. Something just wasn’t working.

Anyway, humans are fucking scary and it irks me out to no end that there is always some horrible part of history I'm unaware of that is just waiting to be found out.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a reader, this book made me go through shock ("how could human beings be so cruel to one another?") denial ("war or no war, how did anyone get away with this? How did the US look the other way just to get a piece of the 'research findings' after the fact?") anger ("why is nothing done to prevent this kind of atrocity? And why don't more people know about it?") sadness ("even the babies were tortured to death and thrown in unmarked graves?") and finally a reluctant acceptance ("what a fallen and broken world this is, and how tragic it is to see what people do when given the chance to follow their own impulses of morality.")

CW: it should go without saying, but this is a very dark chapter of war history detailing cruel and unusual human experimentation. Read with caution.