The shameful and harrowing story Unit 731 | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

[Music]. welcome to stuff you should know a. production of iHeart. Radio hey and welcome to the podcast I'm. Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here. too and this is stuff you should know. and this is definitely the chipper I'm. going to sound for this episode right. now yeah another uh joke free edition. yeah possibly we're definitely hitting. that should we COA.

oh yeah there's there yeah for sure. please go ahead. okay all right I did laugh uh there are. unspeakable atrocities that we will. discuss of the horrors of uh well I was. about to say the horrors of War but it. really are just the horrors of human. experimentation uh during war and so. children should not listen to this and. people that are uh really.

um haunted by that kind of thing should. not listen to. this yeah I mean we can it's not like. there spoilers or anything we're going. to talk about human Viv section um abuse. of like children women the elderly like. it's it's as bad as humans can possibly. do to other humans is what we're going. to talk about today so if that's not. your bag we will definitely not blame. you for skipping this one that's right. uh but we do need to thank a listener. who sent this one in.

uh this came from you know I don't even. know if I'm gonna say her last name her. name is Amy and Amy Anonymous Amy you. know who you are and you know I'm glad. you sent this my way because this is. something I knew nothing about and I. think people you know part of the fabric. of the show is is teaching people uh. some of the Unspeakable things that have. happened that you would not learn in. school and so Amy sent this in so thank. you Amy and we'll just forward any. complaints to you yeah thank you Amy.

yeah exactly um I had heard of Unit 731. before several times nothing I had no. idea the the detail that I know now. about them but you know I was walking on. like we'll never talk about that so. thanks again Amy but. um I guess let's just start at the. beginning let's give a little background. because what we're talking about here is. a Detachment an uh I think an Imperial. Army unit um from Japan that started up.

in the. 1930s and um it committed medical. atrocities war crimes that actually. rival easily rival Joseph mangala's. hideous medical war crimes at aitz um. death camp like the stuff that the. Japanese essentially did during World. War II to Chinese and Russian and to a. lesser extent. Mongolian um uh civilians and then. sometimes prisoners of War including. American.

it's just it's unspeakable and we're. going to try to speak it as best we can. but it doesn't make sense without a. little bit of context if you have a. little bit context in my opinion of. where this evolved from it m it doesn't. doesn't excuse it doesn't explain it it. just makes slightly more sense than the. Japanese just suddenly did this horrible. thing and now everything's back to. normal yeah and just to add an. additional comment to the um sort of. comparison to uh Nazi atrocities mhm um.

certainly not in scale that was. happening in Germany and Poland and. elsewhere uh but as far as just the how. reprehensible some of this stuff is you. know what I'm saying no no this is a. separate thing for sure and it there's. no there's no comparison it's this. happened this happened it's just the. reason I'm comparing the two is because. most people walk around understanding. that the Nazis did these horrible. atrocities and what I'm trying to get. across is that the Japanese did too. during World.

later to yeah absolutely um all right so. you you promised talk of a backstory and. we'll get into that here because the. backstory is is starting sort of in the. late. 1800s uh the government of Japan was uh. it sort of went through a movement where. it was looking to build itself up into a. superpower uh like you know just like. Europe was just like the the United.

States was and a lot of this was tied up. in just sort of modernizing the country. uh whether it was the military or how. they functioned. economically um and and sort of this. Ultra nationalist movement grew up. around all this yeah so you just you. just said the the key word here Ultra. nationalist which is I mean nationalism. is fervent to begin with ultra. nationalism is reaches a fanatical level. and that's kind of this germ that began.

to infect Japanese Society starting in. the 20s or 30s and the reason why is. because Japan took a number of like kind. of punches and was kind of down uh both. economically and um as far as like. cultural honor goes like Japan helped. the US and UK win World War I but were. left out of the table when The Spoils of. War were divided up that was a big black. eyy and the national pride the um the. Great Depression hit Japan um dispropor.

hard compared to some of the other. countries outside of the US um there was. just a lot of stuff that it was clear. that the leaders of Japanese Society. weren't equipped to handle and the the. worse it made Japan look to the Japanese. the the more the um national pride felt. um it needed to be defended and that's. where that nationalism and then. eventually Ultra nationalism came from. and the reason that we're talking about. this today is because it became a really. thick component of the Japanese military. that Ultra nationalist.

fanaticism yeah I mean it can become a. very and usually does become a very. dangerous thing yes everywhere anywhere. in all of history yeah for sure uh in. the 1930s um there was a part of China. northeastern China uh kind of near Korea. and Russia and Mongolia uh called. Manchuria where Japan had a lot of uh. people that were living there had. settled there uh they had a lot of. influence on that area uh the Chinese. government did not like this of course.

they were in the middle of a Civil War. uh with the Nationalist uh which was the. ruling party at the time the Nationalist. government with Chang Kai Sheek uh and. then uh ma zong's Communists were trying. to take control but they had a common. enemy in Japan and Japan was sort of. encroaching on this area in northeastern. China in the 30s yeah and that Ultra. nationalism I said was so um thick in in. the Japanese military it actually. created almost like a a an additional.

Branch especially for the quantong army. that was that had basically invaded. Manchuria it was they weren't following. orders from the Japanese Imperial um. army heads the leaders of the actual. military they were kind of working on. their own their own to expand the Empire. and they were successful so they were. getting away with it they were also. getting away with it because they would. assassinate you or they would stage a. coup attempt like you did not mess with. these people even though they weren't. the leaders the leaders were afraid of. like these middling officers who are.

actually these these Ultra National. Fanatics so the upshot of all that um is. that Japan ended up controlling. Manchuria in the 1930s and set up a. puppet government there and it was like. a big first step toward expanding the. Empire and then one other part of the. backstory and then I'll be quiet about. the backstory is that part of that Ultra. nationalism was a certain amount of. genetic and cultural Pride in Japan and.

the Japanese and there's nothing wrong. with having pride in your culture but. the problem is very often especially in. the context of nationalism or Ultra. nationalism means everybody else is. inferior and so that kind of gave this. Ultra nationalist Detachment of the. military cart Blanc to mistreat anybody. who wasn't Japanese which included the. Russians Koreans Mongolians and Chinese. that all kind of met in Manchuria which. was at the border of all of these. countri countries which is where the the.

Japanese had taken over and set up this. puppet government yeah I mean anytime. you throw the word genetic in there. you're probably traveling down a bad. road yeah you know uh and Japan. definitely saw themselves uh or at least. a faction of Japan I'm not going to say. like everyone in the country but this. Ultra nationalistic uh Wing um thought. they were the superior Asian human being. on planet Earth at the time yeah and the. ones who didn't think the same way were. too scared to speak up or they were.

killed like they killed the Prime. Minister Chuck the military just killed. the Prime Minister assassinated him. because he wasn't going along with their. their aims okay so I lied that was the. end of the. backstory all right so the puppet. government was there in 1932 in. Manchuria uh the Chinese like I said did. not uh love this so uh they had a common. enemy and got together to uh to fight. and there was a a pretty much a. full-scale war started started in 1937.

that a lot of people are like you know. you could really point to this as the. very beginnings of what would be World. War II yeah uh if you if you want to get. technical um and so this is just sort of. what's going on when Unit 731 is formed. in. 1936 uh under the command of General. shirou uh ishii um I watched this it was. a pretty good documentary actually it. like an hour long on YouTube uh I can't. remember what it was called but if. you're looking for Unit 731 docs on.

YouTube it's the one that's like an hour. long on the nose and super. professionally done it's called there's. something wrong with Aunt. Shiro was that it no no I was. referencing another horrible documentary. called there's something wrong with Aunt. Diane not horrible horrific okay I think. I've heard of that one actually it's. it's. tough yeah we'll talk offline because. I'm not sure I'm thinking of the right. one this is definitely the episode to. bring it up in I'll tell you that yeah. uh so a she was a doctor in the Japanese.

Army uh was a part of that Ultra. nationalist Wing um Before the War uh he. was interested in um biological weapons. and what that might offer the Army uh. and supposedly as early as 1930 was. starting to do some human. experimentation um you know as a doctor. though not as a general. correct as both I believe he was he'd. been a general for a while or at least a.

high ranking military official for a. while when he started okay so the reason. that we talked so much about manua a. second ago is because Dr General uh isi. realized very quickly that even in Ultra. nationalist Japan people weren't super. cool with unwilling human. experimentation yeah so he's kind of. successively moved his operation further. and further away from the prying eyes of. everyday Japanese people and ultimately.

ended up in Manchuria because it was. so it was so Lawless as far as like. ethics and morals regarding civilian. treatment and war crimes goes it was the. kind of place where you could set up a. um a medical experimentation machine. using unwilling unwilling participants. it was that kind of place and it also. had a steady supply of inferior human. beings I just made scare quotes for. those of you who can't see me um who.

were the Koreans and the Russians and. the um Chinese and the Mongolians who. lived in the area and were just. unfortunate to have lived in this area. that Japan now. controlled yeah absolutely so in. 1932 um she became the head of the uh. and this is a new operation but it was. called the epidemic prevention research. laboratory uh this was at the Japanese. military medical school in. Tokyo and Unit 731 was known officially.

uh we call it Unit 731 now for short but. it was the Quan uh quantong Army's. epidemic prevention and water. purification department or Mano. Detachment. 731 um but like I said we call it Unit. 731 now and this was this was the main. base of uh operations it was a uh there. were like eight Village basically uh. where they kicked all the villagers out. and said this is ours now uh they built. um I mean it was like it was like a.

prison camp basically you know it was. surrounded by barbed wire there were. guard towers uh no one was coming in or. getting out of there without explicit. permission um but some of the people. invited in uh were uh doctors and nurses. and engineers and Pathologists and uh. people that specialize in uh bacterial. cultures and stuff like that so they. were just sort of Staffing up with um. you know legitimate medical personnel. because they were uh they were set to.

and as you'll see it was sort of like. hey let's figure out anything we ever. wanted to know about the human body and. how it responds to anything you could. throw at it from bullets to knives to. Anthrax right um and so they actually. started out with what a fairly. legitimate mandate which was figure out. how to essentially treat things like. communicable diseases or things that. that soldiers Japanese soldiers might. find useful like um you know if they.

were fighting in the Pacific Theater. figure out how um to treat malaria or. something like that right but under the. guidance of General isi um it became it. they moved from willing initially. willing Japanese soldiers who signed. consent waiver saying you can test on me. to unwilling unfortunate civilians um. and there's a a a lot as we'll see. there's a lot of debate and discussion. about what happened when who was.

involved and if we were doing this. podcast 20 years ago we would be. completely lost by this point totally so. much has come out that we essentially. know exactly what happened and one of. the things that um has really been. established over the years is that. awareness of Unit 731 and the unwilling. medical experimentation war crimes that. was carrying out went all the way to the. top the emperor was involved the. emperor's family was involved prime. minister Tojo was involved everybody.

knew about this it was incredibly. well-funded and it was a huge prong of. the Japanese military it was just also. kept incredibly secret too yeah for sure. uh and when we say unwilling subjects uh. because of where it was located like we. said near Korea and Russia and Mongolia. sometimes it were uh Russians and. Koreans and Mongolians but most of them. were Chinese citizens uh some of them. were were criminals uh some of them were. um just communists that uh were arrested.

basically and rounded up and they were. brought in um like you said sort of. initially like hey let's see what um. we'll see what happens when you don't. eat for a while if our soldiers are out. there and can't get their hands on food. and water like how long can humans go. without food and water or what does this. what does malaria do like you were. saying like diseases they might. encounter uh but it really morphed. pretty quickly into hey uh and this. might be a good time to break but hey I. think we can develop by ological weapons.

so let's see how they react to the human. body yeah and that's when it really took. a terrible left turn yeah all right so. we'll be right back uh and it and it. gets worse in act two we'll be right. back. [Music].

okay Chuck so when we were last talking. the um Unit 731 had started to Veer off. into developing biological weapons yeah. and um they did so apparently because in. 1925 under the Geneva Convention a bunch. of countries outlawed biological weapons. and apparently that caught the attention. of the Japanese who are like wow if it's. worth outlawing those things must really. work at killing so let's try those it. Peak their interest enough that they.

started a program and so they developed. a really extensive pathological. development section where they. apparently could develop a trillion. microorganisms every like few days like. they just grew so many communicable. diseases um that I I saw in some field. tests they would have 150 kilograms of. it like that's how much they could. produce and they were doing things like. producing malaria chalera typhus the. plague they were growing this stuff yeah.

and then they were testing it on those. unfortunate unwilling test subjects to. see what happened and that's where the. essentially the medical torture the war. crimes really began yeah and if you want. to um see what happened to someone that. was infected with typhus or chera you. don't just um ask a bunch of questions. and check vitals and see how say how are. you feeling and we'll write it down um. you mentioned Viva section earlier and. that's what what would happen uh. vivisection is is you know the.

dissection of a live um thing so whether. it's a frog and biology class or in this. case a human being it is a a live human. being uh in these cases being uh cut. open and studied From the Inside Out uh. and a lot of times without. anesthesia um I think they did use. anesthesia for some stuff here and there. at least the documentary said they did. but a lot of times they didn't even use. anesthesia when they would amputate.

someone's limb or take someone's uh. kidney out to study it so on Viva. section uh Nicholas Kristoff the New. York Times Reporter went to Japan in. 1995 as some of this stuff was really. coming out and talked to some people who. are actually in Unit 731 and he actually. interviewed a man who was a doctor at. Unit 731 who had performed one of these. un anesthetized vivva sections and he. quoted the guy in the article if you. want to hear it it's it's just insane.

that people have ever done this to other. people so what the guy said was that the. the and I'm paraphrasing this first part. that when they brought the prisoner in. he knew that it was over for him that. his life he was about to be executed but. he didn't know how so he wasn't he. wasn't fighting along the way he came in. essentially willingly but when they put. him down on the um the examination table. and a scalpel was produced he started. screaming and he said that this this guy. guy this doctor who performed this said.

quote I cut him open from chest to the. stomach and he screamed terribly and his. face was all twisted in agony he made. this unimaginable sound he was screaming. so horribly but then he finally stopped. this is all in a day's work for the. surgeons but it really left an. impression on me because it was my first. time that that happened a guy did that. to another guy he killed him by. performing surgery on him without. anesthesia and opening his his abdomen. and removing organs yeah and this this.

happened a lot uh at Unit 731 um and. we'll say that that part and like the. next probably five to seven minutes or. can we're going to kind of go through. some of the worst of it yeah uh so feel. free to skip ahead uh and then you know. we'll talk about kind of ramifications. and all that stuff but yeah just listen. for the sound of one of us wretching. while the other one's talking you know. we're still in that 5 to seven minute. part yeah exactly um so I'm amputations. and stuff like that organ.

removal uh boy this one is tough they. had uh men that were infected with. different uh veneral diseases like. syphilis uh that were forced to rape. women there to see how syphilis spreads. um there were women who were uh raped. and. impregnated uh that had you know where. where the men had communicable diseases. like you know make make her pregnant so. we can see the effects on developing. fetuses um sometimes baby were born. those babies were experimented on um.

elderly people you know that they wanted. to get a range of um not just what would. this do to a Japanese soldier but what. would these weapons do to a range of. humans like from literal babies to. elderly people so that's what they did. um you want to take. over um sure so some of the things in. addition to studying what communicable. diseases the effects it had on the body. and that's the reason why they would.

give later on why they didn't use. anesthesia sometimes they were concerned. that the anesthesia would affect the. effects and that they wouldn't have like. an actual picture of what was really. going on in the body so they just didn't. anesthetize um but they they studied. other things too like um what happens. when we crush your limb um what happens. if you are only allowed to drink sea. water for several days like just imagine. like completely losing all of your. morals and ethics being a doctor and.

saying like what can I pursue here what. just crazy experiments can I come up. with and then actually carrying them out. and that's essentially what happened at. ping Fon yeah what if you had a blood. transfusion of of cow's blood like what. would that do to a human being or or a. blood type that didn't match your own uh. what would that do to. somebody uh there was one guy he was a. physiologist Nam uh Yoshimura hiato that. focused on frostbite so they would you. know purposely give people frostbite uh.

to see what happened to their body and. their limbs um they did publish some of. this stuff I believe the second in. command his name was uh massaji katano. said that yeah we published some of this. stuff but when we published it during. the war we said that we were using you. know research monkeys and stuff like. that and certainly keeping all you know. anything about humans a secret yeah so. it's not like they didn't realize that. what they were doing was considered. unethical and immoral yeah they knew it. that's also why they kept the whole.

thing secret too and yet they did it. anyway um that that frostbite work is. very frequently cited as you know. evidence that actual scientific um. findings came out of this because. apparently before the way that they. thought to revive a frostbitten limb was. to rub it back into health and they. found that that actually makes it worse. that you want to dunk it in water that's. between 100 and 122° F right and so. people are like see that a scientific. finding it's weird it's almost as if.

they're trying to excuse it in some way. shape or form or say that it was in any. way Justified and from what I can tell. that's the only one that anyone's. actually able to point to as a. scientific experiment that produced. actual scientific findings that we. weren't aware of before yeah for sure um. so not only were they like saying you. know what kind of bomb can we make out. of poison gas or a plague culture or you. know you know uh something that has like.

infected fleas like animal fleas as a. payload that have the plague dropped on. its town but I mentioned earlier just. you know regular regular weapons guns. and knives and stuff like let's just tie. people up at a stake and shoot them with. different things from different. distances to see like how far the. bullets travel what kind of wounds they. would produce uh you know flamethrowers. knives swords anything they could think. of uh to just log sort of what the human. body could take and what kind of effect.

it would have yeah uh that that area. where you're talking about was a second. kind of satellite site at a town called. Anda um it's about 90 miles away from. Harbin which is where the Ping Fon. complex was right and everything we're. talking about to this point has was. carried out at pink Fon and this one. huge 65 square acre complex of just. horror every single day horror and. imagine hundreds of other people working. with them and all of them are walking. around doing the same thing hearing the.

same screams like carrying out the same. atrocities and it's just like the guy. said like it's it was just all in a. day's work that's just what we were. doing like imagine that like try I I. can't even conceive of putting myself in. a place like that and just going along. with it because you know that there were. people who were there who were worried. about not going along with it because. they knew they would be next on the slab. if they spoke up or spoke out against it. I just I just can't imagine it when when.

my brain tries to put me in that that. place at that time it's just like stop I. I don't want to go there yeah did you. see the zone of interests yet no you. should check that out what is it a movie. is it a play is it it was a a movie from. last year it won uh won the Oscar for. foreign film and was nominated for Best. Picture overall uh Jonathan glater it's. basically the movie true story obviously. about the guy who led um who was sort of.

the head of uh the Concentration Camp I. think it was aitz and not doca uh but it. you know it's it's it doesn't go in the. camp at all the whole movie is just told. from the perspective of the fact that he. had his house next door on the on the. other side of the wall where he had his. wife and kids and garden and they just. they live this normal life and it's it's. a very the way that Glazer did it was. very very effective and different than.

I've seen in any other war movie to to. get across those sort of Horrors without. seeing any of them uh happen wow yeah. that's really interesting I I I've heard. about that yeah I haven't heard anything. more than what you just said so I'll. check it out though because I trust your. your recommendations yeah I mean it's a. great film and very effective and you. know the reason I brought it up is. because that's sort of the same idea. because I did a little research after. about this guy and he was like you know. I I felt like I was you know I had to do.

this stuff uh or else I would be you. know shot for not following orders and. that's always sort of the the line that. you hear um sure no for sure especially. further down the the pecking order yeah. the thing is is there were very very. clearly people who were there who were. totally into this and were totally fine. with it all in a day's work like that's. just what they did um yeah but I I. guarantee there were people who were. there crumbling inside every day I I.

don't know maybe there weren't maybe you. couldn't possibly keep quiet in in a. place like that who knows but there were. hundreds of people like you said from. all different fields and professions. that were coming together to work to. experiment on unwilling humans at ping. Fon and that was just ping Fon because. what we said earlier was that their. ultimate goal was to create um. biological weapons yeah and you can sit. there and come up with a trillion. microorganisms every few days all like. all year long and it doesn't amount to.

anything if you can't infect your enemy. with them if you wanted to carry a. biological warfare program I should say. um and so one of the other things that. they experimented on was how to deliver. like you said payloads of plague. infected fleas or chalera into local. Wells and they did it sometimes. successfully and if I think the number. for the people who died just at ping Fon. was 3,000 that's the number that's. generally cited right and they had a.

100% mortality rate among prisoners. there no one survived ping Fon not a. single person survived ping Fon if you. went in there as a prisoner you died. just three just at ping pong that was. 3000 when it goes to like the actual. experiments that They carried out trying. to deliver um biological weapons in. Manchuria it expands by some estimates. into the hundreds of thousands of deaths. yeah yeah and we should point out too.

when you say that there were no. survivors of ping Fon um when they. closed down and uh you know we're. skipping toward the end but when they. did shut it down um whoever was still. living they just murdered straight up to. cover up any sign of evidence and then. just dynamited the place beyond. recognition yeah and then they they. destroyed all the records and then all. of the the people there took a last. order from General is. that was never talk about this and never.

implicate anyone that's ever worked here. uh they basically took a vow of silence. about it yeah so you mentioned uh you. know using actual biological weapons uh. that was mainly against uh Chinese. civilians uh and this is some of the. stuff that you know they had sort of. considered when they dropped like uh. cotton or wheat or rice infested with. disease carrying fleas on different. Chinese cities and um they test ified in. in court later on um civilians did uh.

about like what happened to their. Community uh communities these illnesses. that spread through there. um it's just it it's hard to Fathom that. this was going on and and largely gotten. away with you know yeah yeah there were. a couple more that I found Chuck that. were just reprehensible they would. infect dogs with um chera I believe and. and release them into villages and. collar outbreaks would start um they.

gave the local children chocolate Lac. with. salmonella um that one thing that was. super effective they found was mixing. wheat grain with um plague infested. fleas or infected fleas and dropping it. from airplanes and then the villagers. would feed the grain to their chickens. and a plague outbreak would start and. again like over. time at least tens of thousands of. people in Manchuria died from these. plagues and Cher outbreaks colera is no.

joke apparently there was a a researcher. who was a pathologist at Unit 731 who. boasted that they produced enough kalala. to kill every single person in the world. um and they didn't succeed in that. thankfully but they definitely killed a. significant number of people in. Manchuria with things like Coler and the. plague from just trying to figure out. how to how to get that to those people. fortunately that was something they. really failed at they never really. figured it out yeah um I mean mainly.

we've been talking about like people. that they arrested and you know practice. on or when it was like you know actual. biological weapons it was on civilians. but they also did this on prisoners uh. prisoners of War uh and different places. outside of Unit 731 uh specifically uh. Singapore and the Philippines uh you. mentioned us prisoners of War early on. there was one um documented case at. least one documented case uh in May of. 1945 when uh there was a downed us plane.

where they captured eight Airmen and in. May of 1945 they were basically. medically tortured uh there was one um. medical student later on that said you. know what was going on was just torture. at this point there was no scientific. value happening yeah and that wasn't. even Unit 731 that's how badly like this. whole this whole German infected. Japanese military essentially so the. military is like hey we got these PS we. want to we want to do a number on them.

so basically just operate on them until. they're dead and that's what it would be. dressed up as is like practice um. surgeries like I'm I want to learn how. to remove an arm so that's what they. would practice on or I want to learn how. to remove an an appendix so I'm going to. practice that and like eventually the. patient would just die because they. didn't have enough organs left to. sustain themselves or they lost so much. blood that they they died but they died. from surgery that was how they died well. and if they happened to live through the. surgery they would strangle them till.

they died yeah I heard one other thing. it's kind of unrelated to this but it. it's just stuck out to me and it's kind. of haunted me actually that that there. was a a group of PWS American PS that. were being held in Japan and hours after. this the um surrender had taken place. and worded spread that that Japan. surrendered rather than release these PS. this this group of Japanese soldiers. took them to this Hillside and.

decapitated them killed them just just. completely wasted their lives for. nothing after a surrender somehow it's. bad enough to do that in the context of. War but within hours of surrendering it. makes it exponentially worse it's way. worse than even if that happened five. years later like they just held him for. five years and then killed him somehow. within hours of of. surrendering it just makes it worse to. me and I I can't really get that one out. of my head so I wanted to make sure it. was in everybody else's head I.

guess I I I guess you want to think that. after something as horrific of a war is. has ended then then everyone just wants. to go home and have it be over you know. and that you know clearly isn't always. the case well I remember also just kind. of tied into it the the Nazis did that. too like the truest Believers would just. walk around executing people who like at. the end of the war like they knew like. Hitler was dead and the war was over but. they were executing people who were like. trying to go home or running away or.

whatever um just a complete waste of. life I yeah I don't really have anything. else to add to that maybe we'll edit. that part out but it just has stuck with. me yeah um all right we'll take our last. break and we're going to come back and. finish up with uh the investigations and. kind of what happened afterward and and. prepare to be unsatisfied right after. this.

[Music]. all right uh we are back we promised. talked of investigation and um you know. kind of what happened afterward um it. you know became pretty clear that the uh. the war was ending so General is. um like you said earlier said you know.

no one can ever speak of this uh. beginning on August 9th they started. destroying everything started blowing. that place up killed everyone else who. was there uh which as we'll see is you. know one reason they got away with some. of these atrocities is because there. were no surviving people to testify yeah. um so the US started investigating this. um at a place called Camp uh detri in. Maryland it was an Army base a pretty. new one and when they started. questioning. uh they kind of realized what was going.

on and Japan said you know the cold war. is sort of uh taking hold now and you. know we're really afraid that some of. this stuff might get into the hands of. the Soviets so America made a decision. to rather than pursue uh. prosecution uh was like hey let's work. with them just to get as much much data. and information as we can from them that. is useful to us and that in itself is a. pretty horrific thing yeah we actually.

paid them we paid them we paid The Unit. 731 scientist like General as money to. to to work with us and it's weird. there's like a a lot of papers I read. one from the Cambridge quarterly of uh. Healthcare ethics in. 2014 um that compared like the two. prongs that were taken like two. different two different approaches one. toward the Nazis and their medical. atrocities the Japanese and their. medical atrocities and there was one guy.

in particular named John W Thompson who. was Canadian who really led the charge. to prosecute um the uh Nazi doctors who. carried out these horrible. experimentations as war criminals um. there wasn't a guy like that dealing. with the Japanese in the tribunal to to. um for war crimes in the Far East um and. so the US Military and intelligence was. able to keep a lid on the whole thing. the Russians were talking about it cuz. their people had been killed the Chinese. were certainly talking about it because. their people have been killed and people.

as high up as Douglas MacArthur publicly. saying this is communist propaganda this. isn't true knowing full well it was true. because he was collaborating and his. people under him were collaborating with. the very people who had performed these. atrocities in order to get their medical. data we paid them for it we gave them. immunity some of them apparently even. visited Fort Dietrich to help um with. America's own biological warfare program. that we essentially lifted from the. Japanese after World War II that's.

that's what happened yeah I mean that is. that's Blood on the hands of the United. States because what they're basically. saying they're. basically uh you know they wouldn't. outright say that but they're justifying. these experiments by saying that the. data was. useful well yeah they said that. Americans couldn't possibly ever get. data like this because we have Scruples. but apparently the Japanese don't so. we'll just take their data because they. don't have Scruples but that means that. by proxy you don't have Scruples if.

you're willing to use this and that's. what happened with the Nazi stuff like. that guy John W Thompson wanted to make. an example out of those Nazi doctors. like attention all scientists everywhere. in the world even the cover of World War. II can't save you like you like you're. going to be hung if we ever catch any of. you doing something like this hanged I. guess that that message wasn't given to. the Japanese doctor and in fact because. a lid was kept so tightly on what had.

happened and was just relegated to. rumors as far as America and Japan was. concerned um they were allowed to. reenter Japanese society and actually. become fairly prominent and celebrated. in their fields in a lot of cases yeah. absolutely uh there were some tribunals. from uh over the course of a couple. years from 46 to 48 uh other countries. were involved including China and the. Soviet Union uh but they did not uh talk. about Unit. 731 uh there was a separate Tri tribunal.

in uh Yokohama in 1948 that convicted 23. uh military figures some medical. personnel um that were in the uh Kyushu. University torture and these were. specifically of USPS only and they got. death or life sentences but those. sentences were dropped uh or commuted I. guess uh because the US was trying to. build a friend in Japan at that point. and an ally um at the start of the. Korean War uh and then the Soviets you.

know eventually in 1949 said you know we. have to expose some of this so they put. um and this is by themselves they put 12. members of Unit 731 on trial and you. know accusing them of everything that. they did and this is where a lot of like. information was brought out they were. sentenced between uh 2 to 25 years in. prison and the us because we were now in. a cold war with Russia said that the. this is propaganda yeah so this trial.

where essentially all of the information. the fact factual information we had for. decades about what Unit 731 did came out. of this trial but it was just in the. USSR um and it it wasn't until 1982 that. a journalist named John W Powell got his. hands on it and published an article on. what Unit 731 had done during the war in. the bulletin of atomic scientists. journal and it was through those Court. trans scripts so they came back to haunt. them 30 something years later and that's.

when it really became uh started to. become knowledge among historians um the. military the government in in the west. in the United States and among the. Allies that the Japanese had. actually done these things that they'd. long been accused of by the Soviets and. Chinese and here was evidence of it by. the a testimony by the very people who. were there who' had been captured by the. Soviets yeah I mean most of this stuff. has come out at. alarmingly uh slow rate and over the.

course of decades I believe 1982 there. was a museum uh in China at that ping. fan site uh obviously that China. established but it took all the way. until. 1988 you know 40 plus years after the. war ended that the Japanese government. finally admitted that it even happened. um but they still wouldn't like release. any information like most of the stuff. that we know uh like you said if we had. have done this episode. you know uh at the beginning of our run.

we probably wouldn't have known what we. know now because a lot of it came out in. the '90s the early 2000s well I guess by. that time we were. around yeah but that's neither here nor. there the point is it took a long time. for this stuff to come out yeah um and. you know we can't go over everyone you. did mention that you know many of them. went on to have just great lives and. careers but we should highlight a few of. these uh the second in command that I. mentioned earlier masaji K katano uh he. founded a uh Green Cross a very large.

Japanese uh pharmaceutical company with. two other colleagues from Unit 731 so. they they did. well they did Green Cross went on to. infect 1,800 uh people with hemophilia. with HIV because they were selling them. unsterilized um blood clotting agents in. the. 90s yeah that was what about isii isii. became one of the most celebrated. doctors in all. Japan um he supposedly according to one.

British historian named Richard Drayton. went to Fort Dietrich to advise the US. on the bioweapons program there um he. died in 1959 at age 67 never having even. been um publicly accused of what he had. done uh in Japanese Society he was just. a just a celebrated doctor by that point. when he died yeah the uh the guy H that. um the guy who led those frostbite.

experiments he became president of the. Koto uh prefectural University of. Medicine this one gets me though this. last one you got to say that one yeah. the uh the communicable disease. researcher amitani shogo he won the. Asahi prize for outstanding. contributions to the field of. communicable disease research uh and. part of that was some of the stuff that. he got from Unit 731 yeah and I looked. all over like okay how did he disguise.

that or how did the assah prize people. miss that I didn't see anything like. that apparently his research came. directly from medical experiments on. unwilling participants got him the assah. prize yeah that's insane man. yep um so there's no clear evidence that. the United States gained much of. anything from the deal it made with the. Unit 731. leaders for all of their research other.

people will say nope actually it's not. true at all and in fact the Chinese. accused the US of using the same kind of. germs uh for germ warfare in Korea and. the US of course is like no he didn't. yeah but Fort Dietrich is well known as. being like um like a biological research. facility they're like it's not. biological warfare we're just using gain. of function research to to see what. happens when we make this virus do this. you know not for biological warfare it's. it's very bizarre but it's it exists. it's definitely there and it's um it's a.

strange place apparently that's where a. lot of MK Ultra experiments were carried. out yeah wasn't that where the men. stared at. Goats I think so yeah I mean that was. definitely about that but I don't. remember if that was at Fort said at. Fort dri or not I got a funny story. about that I got to tell you sometime oh. well how about now we could use it no I. can't really tell you here on the. podcast ah copy that all right and then. just one more thing Chuck uh this has. not Revelations that Unit 731 carried.

out these experience has not exactly. been like embraced in Japanese Society. right like there's a a real divide on. whether to teach this uh horrific but. very true history of their own country. because yes of the obvious sort of. effects that this could have on children. and how they feel about their country. yeah they're i' I've seen that they're. worried that they might make Japanese. children ashamed of their country so you. can't teach them that kind of. stuff so that's that's it that's the.

last thing I've got all right you got. anything else uh I got nothing else I'm. glad that one's over same here thanks a. lot Amy yeah thanks Amy if you want to. know more about Unit. 731 okay there's plenty of stuff you can. read on the internet uh and since I said. that it's time for listener. mail uh yeah this is a little further. explanation about Backdraft from our. arts and investig ation up hey guys big. fan of your work uh I was excited to.

listen to the episode on arson. investigation because I'm a firefighter. and I've learned about some of what you. guys covered and got some cool new. information from you uh I want to let. you know that you were so close on. Backdraft but just a little bit off uh. the way Backdraft works is when you have. a working fire uh that does not have. access to Fresh oxygen at a certain. point the fire will have consumed all of. the oxygen in a space and basically. begin to smolder so it will create a. turbulent smoke in a very high uh in. very high temperatures but not actual.

Flames so the Backdraft occurs when. oxygen is suddenly added to the. situation by say opening a door or a. window the sudden addition of oxygen to. the superheated gases can create a. pretty violent explosion and that. explosion itself is the backd trck I. figured I've learned so much from you. guys I thought it' be cool to share some. info back hope this receives you well. and that is from uh Lindsay thanks. Lindsay that was very cool apparently. the only way to fight a backdraft is to. love it too you left that part out L.

that's right you got a joke in there. very nice uh if you want to get in touch. with this like Lindsay did and let us. know something cool that we didn't know. you can do it send it via email to stuff. podcast iheartradio.com. stuff you should know is a production of. iHeart radio for more podcasts my heart. radio visit the iHeart Radio app Apple. podcasts or wherever you listen to your. favorite shows.