Unit 731: Japan's WWII Atrocity, America's Cover-Up

Subjects were tied to boards and shielded with metal sheets while a bomb outfitted with the plague or anthrax was exploded before them, then monitored for days as they succumbed to the viruses. Their limbs were frozen and amputated to test hypothermia, blood loss and fighting capacity. Women were raped and their babies vivisected. Whole villages were wiped out according to the will of Unit 731's head scientist, Shiro Ishii, and over 200,000 may have eventually died from his sadistic and inhumane experimentation. Among this grim horror-house story, however, what shocks most even sixty years after the fact is the United States' granting of immunity to all those involved in Unit 731.

"History is written by the victor," as the adage goes. The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal was concluded in an almost matter-of-fact way, with the handful of executions seeming showpieces of discipline for the benefit of the interested public. The United States went so far as to conceive of categories of crime which those on trial had never heard of before, yet the numerous "crimes against humanity" conducted by Unit 731 were ignored. The existence of that all-too-easy target is today only "acknowledged without comment" by the Japanese government, and the United States only banned Unit 731's surviving top brass from its borders in the mid-1990's.

What could motivate such outright negligence? Only what motivates a disconcertingly large percentage of upper-echelon policy making: namely, its own interests. Within days of Japan's surrender US officials were on Japanese soil, meeting with top members of Unit 731's team. The officials informed the War Department that, while “[the] Japanese [Bio-Warfare] Group, headed by Ishii did violate rules of land warfare," the officials did not recommend "that group be charged and tried as such." Returning POW's were sworn to secrecy in order that the public might remain ignorant of the atrocities of Unit 731.