Fresh Revelations Emerge on Japan’s WWII Germ Warfare Program as 80th Anniversary Nears

As the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II approaches, new documents and testimonies are shedding fresh light on the Imperial Army’s notorious germ warfare program, Unit 731. This renewed focus on a dark chapter of history comes as WWII-era military documents, newly released this year, significantly boost ongoing research into the program which operated from 1936 to 1945.

The sensitivity around this history is underscored by the recent postponement of a Chinese film, ‘731 Biochemical Revelations,’ which depicts the inhumane experiments conducted on Chinese victims. The unexplained delay, pushing the premiere to September, sparked an online outcry and questions about attempts to avoid diplomatic friction between Beijing and Tokyo.

Crucial first-hand accounts are increasingly rare, making the testimony of 95-year-old Hideo Shimizu, a former member of Unit 731’s Youth Corps, invaluable. Shimizu, who joined the unit in 1945, recounts disturbing discoveries, including rooms filled with human organ specimens, suggesting experiments on even the unit’s own trainees. He witnessed the aftermath of gruesome procedures, collecting bones of victims, chillingly referred to as ‘maruta’ or ‘logs’ by Unit 731 doctors.

Further revelations come from Katsutoshi Takegami, who recently discovered his father’s involvement in Unit 1644, another biowarfare unit. His research, aided by the May 2025 public release of Unit 1644’s personnel rosters by Japan’s national archives, aims to track down surviving members and understand the program’s full scope. Historians, like Lv Jing of Nanjing University, view these rosters as a ‘treasure’ for understanding the vast network of units, from Unit 731 in the north to those in Singapore, all engaged in developing biological weapons.

The article highlights the historical injustice surrounding Unit 731’s leaders, many of whom escaped prosecution at the Tokyo Tribunal and went on to have prominent careers in Japan. This immunity was granted by the U.S. in exchange for the unit’s extensive medical experiment data, a deal kept secret for decades. Experts like Barak Kushner of Cambridge University describe this as a ‘lapse of justice,’ driven by U.S. self-interest during the Cold War to prevent the data from falling into Soviet hands and to rebuild Japan as an anti-communist bulwark.

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