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The facilities of Beiyinhe were insufficient for Ishii's project. The buildings were not strong enough Lo serve as a prison; in fact, in September 1934, 16 captives revolted and escaped. So Ishii and the army built a much larger, stronger prison laboratory-factory in Pingfang (sometimes written as Ping Fan), about 20 km southeast of downtown Harbin, now one of the districts of Harbin City Construction at Pingfang began in 1935; residents of four nearby villages were forced to evacuate, and the huge complex was completed around 1938. The Togo Unit became an official unit of the Japanese army in 1936, even before construction was completed. This means that the Japanese Emperor, Hirohito, formally acknowledged Ishii's project, though it seems he was unaware of its details. The Togo Unit was now known as the Epidemic Prevention Department (Boeki Bu) of the Kwantung Army, and as Unit 731. In addition to medical experimentation, Ishii's units were responsible for ,vater purification for Japanese troops in China from 1937 on, and so the unit was soon renamed the Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Department (IPWSD) (Boeki Kyusui Bu). Ishii had invented a water purification machine that could be easily carried to the battlefield During the battles for Beijing and Shanghai, he sent teams to the front to operate it-garnering even more support from army leaders. In 1938, the Japanese army adopted Ishii's machine as standard equipment and organized 18 divisional EPWSDs (Shidan Boeki Kyusui Bu), whose directors were officers of Unit 731. By 1939, lshii's network included some field water purification units, 18 divisional EPWSDs, and five permanent Epidemic Prevention Departments-in Harbin (Unit 731), Beijing (Unit 1855), Nanjing (Unit 1644), Guangzhou (Unit 8604), and Tokyo (Boeki Kenkyu Shitsu). Altogether, Ishii commanded more than 10,000 people. When the Japanese army occupied Singapore in 1942, another permanent EPWSD was added to the network (Unit 9420) Unit 731 had a proving ground in Anda (about 150 km northwest of Harbin) and five branches located in Mudanjiang, Linkou, Sunwu, Hailar, and Dalian. In addition, as a leader of army surgeons, Ishii had power over army hospitals in occupied cities in China. His network also had close connections with other biological warfare departments such as the Military Animals Epidemic Prevention Department (Gunju Boeki Shou) in Changchun, Manchuria (Unit 100), and institutions for chemical warfare such as the Army Sixth Technology Institute in Tokyo, the Army Narashino School in the Tokyo suburb of Narashino, the Army Ninth Technology Institute (Noborito Institute) in Noborito, also a Tokyo suburb, and the Kwantung Army Chemical Department in Qiqihar in Manchuria (Unit 516). Unit 731 probably moved to the new base in Pingfang in 1938. It was a 6-square-kilometer complex of secret laboratoryfactories surrounded by trenches and high-voltage electric wires. The whole district became a special military area, which meant anyone approaching without permission was to be shot by the guards. The main building had two special prisons in its inner yard, so that escapees could never get outside. The captives were called maruta, which means "logs" in Japanese, and were identified only by numbers. At a little-noted war crimes trial conducted by Soviet authorities at Khabarovsk in 1949, Surgeon MaJor General Kiyoshi Kawashima, who was chief of a division of Unit 731, testified that the prisons usually held 200 to 300 captives, including some women and children, but that their maximum capacity was said to be 400. 1 The Military Police sent 400 to 600 captives to Unit 731 every year under the Special Transfer Procedure (Tokui Atsukai), a system the Japanese army developed to supply human subjects. 1 This system for procuring subjects differed from that of Nazi Germany. The Nazi transfer system was not for procuring subjects but for genocide. But in the case of the Japanese medical experiments, victims were purposely selected and sent to Ishii's network to be subjects of experiments. At least 3,000 people were tortured to death at Unit 731 from 1940 to 1945. 1 But this number does not include victims before 1940 or at other medical experimentation sites. Allied prisoners of war (POWs) may have been subjected to experiments by Unit 731 researchers at the camp in Mukden (now Shengyang).2 · 3 Moreover, the activities of Unit 731 researchers were only a part of the medical atrocities committed by Imperial Japan. According to a large body of testimony, deadly experiments also were performed in other permanent EPWSDs such as Units 1644 and 1855. American, Australian, and New Zealander POWs were forced to participate in experiments by Surgeon Captain Einosuke Hirano of the 24th Field EPWSD in Rabaul, Papua, New Guinea,4 and eight U.S. airmen were killed in surgical experiments on the Japanese home islands. 5 Table 3.1 presents an approximate timeline of the Imperial Japanese experiments in China, along with other relevant historical dates. Medical Atrocities Medical atrocities performed by Imperial Japanese doctors can be classified into three categories: 1. Training of army surgeons. 2. Biological warfare maneuvers. 3. Research with humans. Training of Army Surgeons Surgeons at army hospitals performed many vivisections on Chinese captives, with anesthesia. For example, these doctors performed appendectomies and tracheostomies on the prisoners, shot them and took bullets from their bodies, cut open their arms and legs and sewed up the skin around the wounds, and finally killed them. This was purportedly part of training newly assigned army surgeons to treat wounded soldiers at the front lines. Confessions by many of the surgeons involved are on record 6·7 At Datang Army Hospital in Datang, Shanxi, in June probably of 1941, Surgeon MaJor Kazuharu Tanimura and Surgeon Lieutenant Rihei Miura conducted a three-day training program that involved lectures on military surgery and exercise surgeries such as suturing of blood vessels and nerves, thoracotomy, celiotomy, craniotomy, blood transfusion, various anesthetizations, appendectomy, and nephrectomy, performed serially on "six bodies of prepared materials."8 The trainees were army surgeon officers of the Army Medical College. Judging from confessions about similar cases, the "materials" probably were arrested Chinese resisters who probably were killed in these exercises. The Imperial Japanese Experiments in China 33 In the summer of 1989, human bones from more than 100 bodies were found in the ground where the Army Medical College had been located in Tokyo from 1929 to 1945 Eleven skulls and most long bones were heavily sawed or drilled. One skull was shot and another one was stahhed. Judging from the condition and technique, they must have been the subjects of Lest surgeries, preserved as specimens in the Army Medical College, and finally buried when Japan surrendered.9 They may be the remains of vivisected Chinese prisoners. Biological Warfare Maneuvers Hundreds of confessions testify to Imperialjapanese research into the use of biological warfare. Unit 731 used biological warfare during the four-month clash betweenJapan and the Smriet Union over the Manchukuo-Mongol border in 1939, according to testimonies of former junior assistants of Unit 731. 10 · 1 1 Moreover, Japanese army officers themselves wrote about biological warfare against China in their official records. According to these notes, at least three major attacks on Chinese citizens were carried out. First, in 1940 Lieutenant Colonel Kumao Imoto, then on the general staff of the Japanese Expeditionary Force in China, wrote in his log several times about consultations with army surgeon officers of Unit 731. On October 7, 1940, he wrote that Unit 731 officers reported, "So far six attacks have been completed" on Ningpo City. 12 On October 30, an epidemic of plague suddenly occurred in Ningpo, which is now suspected to have been the result of these attacks. In the log of November 30, 1940, general officer Kaizo Yoshihashi reported, "On November 21 ... an agreement was reached that next time Jinhua would be attacked" with Ishii's Unit. 13 This coincides with the fact that on November 28 a Japanese bomber sprinkled on the city of Jinhua granules in which plague bacillus was found. 7 Second, on September 16, 1941, Imoto wrote that "the Imperial Headquarters issued a direction for biological warfare." 14 On November 25 it was reported that Changde was attacked in the morning of November 4 and an epidemic occurred there on November 6. 15 Third, on August 28, 1942, Imoto noted how army surgeons of Unit 731 had performed biological warfare in Zhegan (Zhejiang-Jianxi) operations. In Guangxin, Guangfeng, and Yushan, plague bacillus was scattered via contaminated fleas, rats, and lice. InJiangshan and Changshan, vibrio cholerae was thrown directly into wells or smeared on foods and injected into fruits that were left on the streets. In Quxian and Lishui, typhus and paratyphoid were distributed with corrupted fleas. On October 5, Army Surgeon Colonel Tomosada Masuda of Unit 731 told Imoto that the attacks with contaminated fleas and vibrio cholerae in the wells were probably successful. 16