Episode 51 - Unit 731

Out of all the atrocities that Imperial Japan unleashed upon the Chinese people during their brutal occupation, probably none were as gratuitously hateful as the operations of Unit 731, the Japanese biological warfare unit that somehow plumbed new depths in what was already a genocidal war. Despite innocent beginnings as a research and public health agency, Unit 731 eventually grew into an assembly line for weaponized diseases that, if fully deployed, could have killed everyone on Earth several times over. All this “progress” was, of course, built on the limitless suffering of human captives, who were held as test subjects and walking disease incubators until Unit 731 was shut down at the end of the war. Led by Surgeon General Shiro Ishii, Unit 731 began its experiments in earnest after Japan invaded China in 1937 and started using the country’s civilian population as their guinea pigs — but it wasn’t until much later that the true horrors of Unit 731’s experiments would come to light. From dissecting captives while they were still alive to giving them syphilis and watching them slowly deteriorate, Unit 731’s experiments stand out as some of the most gruesome in human history. https://allthatsinteresting.com/unit-731 credits: https://allthatsinteresting.com/podcast-credits Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices