The Devil's Doctors: Japanese Human Experiments on Allied Prisoners of War

by Mark Felton

The author of Guarding Hitler delivers “a study revealing the Japanese use of Allied POWs in medical experiments during WWII.”—The Guardian   The brutal Japanese treatment of Allied POWs in WW2 has been well documented. The experiences of British, Australian and American POWs on the Burma Railway, in the mines of Formosa and in camps across the Far East, were bad enough. But the mistreatment of those used as guinea pigs in medical experiments was in a different league. The author reveals distressing evidence of Unit 731 experiments involving US prisoners and the use of British as control groups in Northern China, Hainau Island, New Guinea and in Japan. These resulted in loss of life and extreme suffering.   Perhaps equally shocking is the documentary evidence of British Government use of the results of these experiments at Porton Down in the Cold War era in concert with the US who had captured Unit 731 scientists and protected them from war crime prosecution in return for their cooperation. The author’s in-depth research reveals that, not surprisingly, archives have been combed of much incriminating material but enough remains to paint a thoroughly disturbing story.   “The narrative does not seek sensation or attempt to draw irrefutable conclusions where it is clearly impossible to do so, instead it simply provides a balanced assessment of what is known and what seems probable.”—Pegasus Archive

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Ebooks, Medical

290 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 1, 2012

About the author

British military historian and author. For more information visit www.markfelton.co.uk

Reviews

[Maxwell Kenyatta · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my country Kenya, any person of Asian origin particularly the Japanese, Korean and Chinese are all referred to as " Chinese". This is partly due to the Chinese presence in the country and also ignorance plays the better part of it. I used to be ignorant too and I remember once I referred to a Japanese as Chinese back in college. He was VERY FURIOUS. I didn't understand why until I watched a documentary on the Naankin Massacre where the Japs slaughtered the Chinese women, children and men as well and have been causing misery to the Chinese for the longest time.

Reading this book about the Japanese atrocities on Allied POWs (Americas, Britons, Frenchman, Australians) and Chinese and Russians too under Dr. Shiro Ishii on the prisoners' camps, one gets to know why the Japanese were hated after WW2. This books paints a vivid picture on the human experiments done on the POWs who were used as guinea pigs. They experimented on live men, women, children and babies and some were used as labourers for the Mitsubishi Motor Company. They would inject the human subjects with horse urine, germs, chemicals, bacteria or viruses to observe how the affected the human body in real time. Some were subjected to extreme weather such as freezing ones hands to observe effects of frostbite. Limbs could be detached and attached to the wrong places. Eg. Hands could be removed and attached on the hips and vice versa. All these was for the development of biological weapons for use in Biological Warfare and they wanted to observe first hand effects on live human subjects before large scale production.

[Sam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Poorly written, hard to read, no real information that you can’t just get by skimming a Wikipedia article. Rambling, repetitive, full of typos, pages go by without any spacing for new paragraphs. I think this might actually be a student’s persuasive essay assignment being sold on amazon for $11.

[Joanne Parkington · Rating 2 out of 5]

I got to page 37 and already people were having there arm's and leg's removed only to be re-stitched somewhere they shouldn't ... a strong stomach & some other verification is required.

[Jasper · Rating 3 out of 5]

Contains some interesting information but it's rather poorly written and structure is lacking as well. His later books are much better, so I had higher expectations.

[Ultan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first Mark Felton book and it was fantastic! I first stumbled upon his Youtube Channel discussing World War 2 History and I was very impressed by his unbiased takes on historical events and his thorough research. I was very happy to see that he puts just as much if not more effort into his books.

In The Devil's Doctors Felton investigates and presents evidence that the Japanese did in fact experiment on allied POWs on a large scale. The book presents a very persuasive argument for this as there is a handful of first-hand accounts of what took place at Mukden Camp for POWs in Manchuria. We do know for a fact that the Japanese did indeed experiment on some allied soldiers such as the experiments which took place at Kyushu University https://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo... you can find more information on them here.

Sadly we may never know the extent of Japanese experiments on Allied POWs due to the Governments of the Allied countries withholding information(even FBI Director J Edgar Hoover was unable to get such information) so we can never know for certain but as Felton shows in this book there is evidence that the human experiments on Allied soldiers were much more large scale and pernicious than originally thought.

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to know more about the atrocities and horrors of World War 2, human experimentation, and biological warfare.

[Fiona · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is very harrowing reading as you would expect from the title. It was a bit like reading an essay that had been put together jigsaw like in paragraphs as there is a lot of "as we will see" and repetition throughout the book which got very irritating. The destruction of Pingfan for instance is described on three or maybe even four separate occasions...

However it has to be said the research into such a taboo subject is totally amazing. I think the author has done a good job finding information, but perhaps it could have been edited more to flow smoothly. Ive read a lot of books about the war in recent years and this was an area I was ignorant on, so this filled that gap. Grim but fascinating and shows how the British and Americans were willing to overlook terrible crimes for knowledge.

[Han · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has broadened my understanding of the ‘players’ involved in some of the most secretive and gruesome events happening in the world today, and also of those that have occurred in history.

It is interesting and insightful for those trying to understand the happenings in the current world, in light of the past.

Writing style is pretty banal; had to force myself at times to complete it!

Also not recommended for the faint hearted.

[Jason Townsend · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found Mr. Felton through his YouTube channel and decided to read this book to see how he holds up in print. I wasn’t disappointed, but I’d advise having a strong stomach to get through this book’s subject matter.

[Seth Augenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very solid historical re-evaluation of a particular angle of the Unit 731 horrors

[Sophia]

I didn’t read the book just needed a book that was the same as a wattpad book

[Sonia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such an underwritten about subject. And the reasons why are shocking.