Unit 731 and Germ Warfare

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michael mills
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#1

Post by michael mills » 29 Feb 2004, 09:20

Attempts by another totaliterian regime to spread falsehoods on US air ordnance,during the Korean War,are also of interest:
That totalitarian regime also made a similar claim about the use of bacteriological warfare against China by Japan during the Sino-Japanese War.

The facts are:

1. Japan did experiment with bacteriological warfare, using human subjects at its secret installation in Manchuria.

2. China claimed Japan used bacteriological warfare against it.

3. The United States gained access to the results of the Japanese bacteriological warfare experiments at the end of the Second World War, and also carried out its own experiments, albeit not with the same degree of inhumanity.

4. China claimed the United States used bacteriological warfare against it during the Korean War.

5. Although it was possible for the United States to have used bacteriological warfare, since it had access to all the Japanese material, the Chinese accusations have been proved false, based on faked evidence.

Given the above facts, it is very possible that the Chinese accusations against Japan were also false, based on the same sort of faked evidence as in Korea.

alf
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#2

Post by alf » 29 Feb 2004, 10:06

Given the above facts, it is very possible that the Chinese accusations against Japan were also false, based on the same sort of faked evidence as in Korea
.

The above is way off topic but it does deserve a reply of somekind and then be relegated away. It is a huge leap to make, a true leap of faith indeed, especialy as the Japanese themselves acknowledge that Unit 731 existed and conducted biological warfare experiments on prisoners.

But as my late grandfather always said "never let facts get in the way of personal prejudices" :P

The evidence on Unit 731 is quite detailed, from both Japanese, Allied and Chinese sources, as is the deal done by the US to acquire that information

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/2218266.stm
The group had sued the Japanese Government, demanding an apology for its use of germ warfare against Chinese citizens and ten million yen ($84,000) each in compensation.

But the three judges did acknowledge the facts of the case, the first time a Japanese court has admitted Japan conducted biological warfare during World War II.

The court ruled that under international law, individuals had no right to seek compensation from a state.

A spokesperson for the group expressed outrage at the decision.

The group's lawyers said they were encouraged that the judges had accepted the existence of the biological warfare unit and the acts it had performed.
A handful of the 11,900 plus Google hits done on Unit 731 WW2, enough to keep any serious researcher busy for quite some time.

http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~dyue/wiihi ... 731rev.htm

http://www.historyofmilitary.com/Unit_7 ... 37399.html

http://www.ww2pacific.com/unit731.html


michael mills
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#3

Post by michael mills » 01 Mar 2004, 00:52

Alf wrote:
The above is way off topic but it does deserve a reply of somekind and then be relegated away. It is a huge leap to make, a true leap of faith indeed, especialy as the Japanese themselves acknowledge that Unit 731 existed and conducted biological warfare experiments on prisoners.
Shalom aleicha, Alf.

Please look carefully again at what I wrote, which was:

The facts are:

1. Japan did experiment with bacteriological warfare, using human subjects at its secret installation in Manchuria.
So as you see, I did not contest the existence of the installation in Manchuria at which experiments in bacteriological warfare on human subjects were carried out.

Your material confirms the existence of those experiments, but that is all.

China claims that Japan went beyond the experimental stage and started using biological warfare against the Chinese civilian population, ie that Japan had actually found an effective way of spreading the pathogens it had cultivated at its Manchurian laboratories.

I am questioning those claims, on the basis that similar claims by China that the United States used biological warfare against it during the Korean War have been shown to be false, and the evidence faked.

One of the ways in which the evidence was faked was through the creation of false "infection regions" by taking plague and cholera bacteria from Chinese corpses.

Exactly the same technique seems to have been used in relation to Chinese claims that Japan used biological warfare during the Sino-Japanese War. The Chinese Government claims that large areas of China were devastated by plague and cholera during that war, caused by pathogens spread from the air by Japanese forces, and produces witnesses to testify to those outbreaks of disease. But the plague and cholera most probably were of natural origin, as during the Korean War; the Chinese may well have faked the evidence by using the corpses of Chinese who had died naturally of those diseases.

Alf, you will have to learn to read what I write more carefully, before tknocking down a straw man.

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#4

Post by michael mills » 01 Mar 2004, 01:06

Here is some more from the BBC site linked by Alf:
Japan's wartime military ''bombed'' a Chinese city with bubonic plague carrying fleas, triggering a serious outbreak of the disease, a doctor has told a Tokyo court.

Bacteriologist Huang Ketai said at least 109 people had died from the plague in Ningbo in November and December 1940.

The disease broke out just days after Japanese warplanes dropped fleas over the city centre, the court heard.

Dr Huang was giving evidence at a case in which 180 Chinese are demanding compensation and an apology from Japan for the deaths of their relatives during World War Two.

The plaintiffs believe their family members were killed in biological experiments and acts of brutality carried out by Japan's notorious Unit 731.

Dr Huang said the fleas, a kind not native to the region, were infected with "plague with artificially intensified toxicity", which he added only Unit 731 could do.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs say the fleas were dropped by air in a mixture with wheat.

"Obviously, the outbreak was deliberately created," Dr Huang added. "It perfectly matches the area and the timing of the Japanese military's wheat dumping."

The bubonic plague is normally spread by fleas on rats, but only one dead rat was found, he added.

Also unusual was the fact that the outbreak was confined to such a small area.

Dr Huang said infected houses, hospitals and other buildings in Ningbo were burned and had to be left untouched for decades.

The lawsuit, filed in 1999, claims at least 2,100 people were killed in germ-bombings and other biological experiments by the unit and its affiliates.

After decades of denial, Japan has now admitted that Unit 731 did exist, but it has refused to confirm its activities.

Xuan Wang, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said they were demanding Japan admit it carried out biological warfare and apologise.

They are also asking for 10m yen ($86,670) each in compensation for the "mental suffering [caused by] biological warfare".

The hearing at the Tokyo District Court is expected to continue for months.

"I have devoted almost my entire life to the flea bombing probe," Dr Huang said in comments quoted by AP news agency.

"Japan's government should at least apologise and compensate for our sufferings."
The claim that the Japanese miltary dropped plague-carrying fleas on a Chinese city is exactly the same claim as was made in respect of United States forces during the Korean War. The latter have been shown to have been falsified, and thus the suspicion is aroused that the claims made in respect of attacks by Japanese forces are equally spurious.

The existence of Unit 731 and the experiments on human subject carried out there is not in disputes (although the number of victims claimed in the court case seem far fewer than those given in the more lurid accounts).

What is questionable is whether Japanese forces actually progressed to the use of biological warfare operations against Chinese populations.

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#5

Post by Eden Zhang » 01 Mar 2004, 07:02

What is questionable is whether Japanese forces actually progressed to the use of biological warfare operations against Chinese populations.
One can imagine that if the Japanese went through all that trouble doing the testings and such, they would most likely put that to use.

Besides, by experimenting upon Chinese/Korean civilians and POWs, aren't they already using it against the population?

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#6

Post by michael mills » 02 Mar 2004, 06:31

One can imagine that if the Japanese went through all that trouble doing the testings and such, they would most likely put that to use.
The same argument applies to the United States in Korea. One can imagine that if the United States had taken the trouble to make a secret deal to obtain all the results of the Japanese tests, including the risk of moral sanction if news of the secret deal leaked out, it would most likely have put the information to practical use.
Besides, by experimenting upon Chinese/Korean civilians and POWs, aren't they already using it against the population?
They had used it on a very small part of the population, a few thousand prisoners at most, which is a different matter from spreading pathogens over a wide area, with potential victims in the hundreds of thousands.

What was being tested at Unit 731 was the effect of the pathogens on human subjects. It is uncertain whether the Japanese had successfully weaponised the pathogens, ie devised a method of spreading them over a wide area in a targeted way without killing them in the process. The claim has been made that the pathogens were dropped in ceramic containers that burst on impact with the ground, but I am not sure whether that method has been proved to be feasible.

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#7

Post by Peter H » 02 Mar 2004, 13:45

The ruling from the 2002 court case on the issue of Japanese biochemical warfare in China:

http://www.anti731saikinsen.net/en/bassui-en.html

The plaintiff witness,one Yoshiaki Yoshimi mentioned,is a Professor of Japanese History who is said to have documented the aerial attacks using the wartime diaries of Units 731 and 1644.

My understanding is that the Japanese court, while accepting the evidence of such activities,denied 'legislative negligence' and hence compensation.

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#8

Post by Karl » 02 Mar 2004, 13:50

I wonder what happened to the unit’s findings.

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#9

Post by Eden Zhang » 03 Mar 2004, 08:51

Karl wrote:I wonder what happened to the unit’s findings.
I think most people believe that the Americans took those findings and used them on their germ warfare programs. In return they granted amnesty towards the Unit 731 soldiers involved in the program.

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#10

Post by Topspeed » 21 Nov 2005, 11:52

Japanese are digging them and disposing the germs. Looks still very dangerous findings.

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#11

Post by Sven-Eric » 22 Nov 2005, 22:14

I would very much want to know what proofs you have, Michael, for the claim that the Chinese faked evidence against the Americans.

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#12

Post by michael mills » 23 Nov 2005, 00:23

Material released from Soviet-era archives shows that the Soviet Government at the time of the Korean War was aware that the Chinese Government was faking evidence of biological warfare by the United States in Korea and Manchuria. Reports by its officials serving with the Chinese, and there were many of them, gave details of the methods that the Chinese were using to fake the evidence, including the taking of samples of pathogens from the bodies of Chinese who had died in natural outbreaks of plague and other diseases.

In fact, the Soviet Government advised the Chinese Government against making false claims of biological warfare, fearing that the faked evidence would be easily disproved, creating a major propaganda disaster for the Communist side in the conflict.

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#13

Post by Sven-Eric » 23 Nov 2005, 22:03

It would be interesting if you could provide a real source for this, Michael.

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#14

Post by michael mills » 24 Nov 2005, 01:59

Sven-Erik,

Here is one that I found specifically on the Soviet documents:

http://www.kimsoft.com/1997/us-germy.htm

Note that this is a hostile source, one that believes in the truth of the claim that the US conducted biological warfare in Korea using methods developed by the Japanese, and hence it tries to discredit the Soviet documents. You will have to make your mind up as to what the truth is.

Here is an official US Government website, also containing much information on the Soviet documents, and a link to an analysis of them. As is to be expected, this source believes the Soviet documents to be credible, and proof of the faking of evidence.

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2 ... 62154.html

So Sven-Erik, you pays your money and you makes you chouce. Neither of the two above opposed sources can be called unbiassed and neutral.

But what I find convincing about the Soviet documents is that they aros froml a struggle for power within the Soviet Government. One faction had been involved in the faking of evidence of biological warfare by the US, and the opposed faction revealed that fakery in order to discredit its rival.

It seems to me extremely unlikely that a Kremlin faction would have denied the the reality of germ warfare by the United States, ie taken a position favorable to the United States and unfavorable to one of its Cold War allies, purely in order to win a power struggle, unless it had known for sure that the evidence against the United States was faked.

If any Kremlin faction had had even the slightest honest belief that there was some substance to the charges against the United States by China and North Korea, then it would not have thrown away a highly effective propaganda weapon simply to win a power struggle.

The fact that the Beria faction was prepared to throw away that potential propaganda weapon by accusing its rivals of faking the evidence demonstrates to my mind that it knew for certain that the charges of germ warfare by the United States were baseless and that the propaganda weapon was worthless.

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#15

Post by Sven-Eric » 25 Nov 2005, 22:53

You can hardly compare these two sources. The American one is to be regarded as partial while the other is an analysis of the Russian documents by two scholars who have investigated this matter.

These Russian documents have been questioned as being fakes. These two authors are not alone in that opinion. I have been in touch with one of the foremost expers on Korean history, professor Bruce Cumings at the University of Chicago. His conclusion after a brief look at these documents is that they are fakes.

It shall be noted that the Chinese, despite that the relations with the US has improved, have never retracted from their stand. After the revelation of these Russian documents, the Chinese government decided to open the relevant archives on this matter. The authors of Michael's first link, took advantage of that and have made researches in these Chinese archives. That resulted in a book well-worth reading The United States and Biological Warfare.

They are not alone. Already at that time, in 1952, the Needham report concluded that the Chinese and the Koreans had been exposed of biological warfare.

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Sven-Eric

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