Japan's Infamous Unit 731

Unit 731 is still an obscure outcrop of the mentality of WWII. It is a near-hidden atrocity in an era that is famous for its atrocities. Unit 731 started as a branch of the Japanese military which attended to increasing the hygiene of the army and reduce the spread of disease. That quickly changed into cultivating bacteria to use in biological warfare. Not many of their idea were used. It was determined that diseases have a tendency to bounce back and hit the side spreading the disease. This is not stop the testing, however. And many civilians, mostly Chinese, were deliberately given diseases and then had vivisections performed on them to watch the progress of the bacteria. Others had their limbs frozen until they developed frostbite, so the doctors could determine the best way to prevent tissue damage. A lot of Chinese lost their arms and legs as the doctors worked on this.Why is Unit 731 so obscure? First, there was a deliberate cover-up. Not just during the end of WWII, but for two generations afterwards. There was no way for the Nazi's to cover their crimes, but these were obscure enough and hidden in official secrecy, that the members of the unit could skirt detection. Secondly, the communist Chinese government themselves never raised an international stink. That is why the Unit and the Rape of Nanking remain almost unknown in modern stories of WWII. Third, MacArthur had them deliberately excluded from the war crimes trials in Japan in exchange for the medical data they had gathered. So why is it obscure? It was to become so by all the nations involved.This book contains what background history still exists about the unit, plus an explanation of the experiments carried out. The last third is filled with testimonials of former workers in Unit 731. This is a small sample of the hundreds involved in the unit. Most of the biggest criminals died without confession, or even receiving much punishment, if any.

It's an unfortunate fact of history (and partly, though incompletely explained in this book) that the horrors of Japan's Unit 731 have gone largely unknown by far too many people. Even among those who consider themselves historically literate, this particular episode seems to have escaped widespread scrutiny or analysis. If you're trying to understand what happened in that "infamous" program, this book might be a decent place to start.The book is divided into two parts. The first half consists of a brief historical treatment of Unit 731. The information is enlightening, though I would argue this is the book's weaker portion. Documented facts are mixed with more questionable anecdotes. While the bigger picture presented by the book is historically solid, this does make it a bit difficult to determine which information is most reliable when analyzing the details.The book also spends arguably too much time discussing the postwar lives of Unit 731's membership and the various political maneuvers that led most of them to escape any sort of accountability. That's an important part of the story, of course, but if you're reading the book to understand Unit 731 itself, I would argue that it needs a bit more detail on the events that took place during the war itself, rather than the prewar and postwar periods.However, where the book really shines is in its second half, consisting of firsthand accounts from witnesses to Unit 731. Horrifyingly, all of these accounts are written by the perpetrators, as there were no surviving victims. But that also arguably makes the book all the more valuable because it helps the reader to understand something of the psychology behind what happened.Undoubtedly, this book is an unpleasant read. That's not through any fault in its prose or structure (though it is a little on the dry side at times), but simply because the subject matter is among the most horrific ever found in a bookstore's non-fiction section. But while it's unpleasant, it's also important, and I'd encourage everyone to read it.

This book goes in great detail to explain the big picture of unit 731 and then in part two gives witness accounts of what happened. Absolutely gruesome and emotional to think about the people who were hurt and killed, no painful details were spared. Not for the faint of heart. Only giving 4 stars because there was a lot of repetition.

I knew the Japanese during WW2 were cruel but this escalated it to a whole new level.

The book is fairly good but uses several acronyms that are not explained, leaving the reader to have to guess or infer their meaning through the text. A shirt glossary would have been a good idea. There are also some grammatical mistakes and misprints, as if the book had been translated or written by a foreign person (who speaks near perfect English).

I enjoyed reading it as it was a topic I did not know much about. It does not go into much detail, though and is a very quick read.

As one who loves Japanese culture, people, and food this was a heart wrenching book to read. To die the way the “maruta” and others did is simply unimaginable. This book PROVES the need in society for the GOD of the Bible!! While Japan today is nothing like it was during WW2 they have not embraced Jesus Christ. Japan deserves forgiveness. But, history will repeat itself without morality from the Bible.Read this book to better understand evil. It is this understanding that makes me run toward God.This book is for those over 18 years of age. It is that disturbing. May this never happen again!!

Worse than anything Joseph Conrad could have imagined. Comparable to medical experiments in Nazi concentration camps but on a much vaster scale. Revealing look at the depths of depravity we humans are capable of. Strong stomach required...

Sweet baby Jesus. This book is dark. don't read it on a full stomach if your stomach is weak.Incredibly impacting book. I'm glad the author took the time to do the research and compile so much information. It is an unfortunately dark and tragic period of history, but we need to know about it.Thank you Hal Gold

Way too technical and detailed for me.

Very detailed and informative.

Positive reader reviews and a foreword by an American history professor might convince buyers that this is a worthwhile purchase for those wishing to know more about Japan's WW2 research into chemical and biological warfare and human physiology, conducted on live humans. I'm sorry to say (having bought and read the book) that they would be wrong: the book is junk.The issues are too numerous to attempt to cover all of them but might be summed up with terms like sloppy, shallow, naive (in a writing sense) and amateur. The history itself gets only the thinnest of washes as facts and anecdotes are pasted in with frustratingly little evidence of continuity so that the reader never feels that they are making progress through a story of how the research came about, who the main military and civilian proponents were, what those people were like and what drove them, and what the experience was of the (mostly Chinese) human subjects and their communitiesDespite the very human nature of the story no real human experience comes through on either side of the line. The chief protagonist of the human research programme, Ishii Shiro, remains a carboard ghost about whom nothing is revealed, when what the reader wants to know is how a person can come to the belief that it is right to experiment on humans to further research into chemical and biological weapons.The impression throughout is of an author cutting and pasting from a scrapbook of third-hand stories, including descriptions of educational exhibitions on the subject in 1990s Japan, with the weakness of the book's content no more visible than in the later section of testimonies from those involved: some of the "testimonies" are actually the comments and reactions of people to seeing the exhibition. This is mush, not history. It's as if an author on the history of the Holocaust drew on the comments of tourists as they exited Dachau.I don't like to attack a book that might be well intentioned but when an important subject is presented in an almost unreadable format and Amazon reviewers hand out 4- and 5-star ratings like confetti I feel the need to give a more sober view and perhaps save at least a few prospective buyers their cash. Terrible history deserves brilliant books and this is not one of them.