Japanese UNIT 731

There were several Allied prison of war camps in Manchuria - set up as the Americans got closer to the Homelands.

Reading of the brutal and inhuman treatment of POWs transported by Japanese from other parts of SE Asia , sometimes moved several times, is very disturbing.

In fact the Mukden Camp contained some of the most senior Allied Officers, American, British and Dutch. In fact at Seian Camp which was some miles away the prisoners included 15 of the very top brass, including Percival and American generals from the Philippine campaign

A Group of American Paratroopers led by a Colonel O'Donovan parachuted in on 17th August but the Japanese were left guarding the camp due to local insecurity. The store of Red Cross parcels that the Japanese, as everywhere else considered a present for themselves were broken open and a flight of B29's dropped further goodies.

At 8.00pm on 19th, The Camp was surrounded and liberated by the Soviet Army. The Japanese officers and men were ordered to bow and apologise individually before being escorted away.

An American, Major General Parker (captured in the Philippines) who was the most senior present - then made the colossal gaffe of thanking the Imperial Russian Army.

The final British and Dutch Officers left Mukden by train on 9 September.

 

An American, Major General Parker (captured in the Philippines) who was the most senior present - then made the colossal gaffe of thanking the Imperial Russian Army.

Oops!

 

The British were investigating the possibilities of the biological weapons too - although with sheep only.

Gruinard Island - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

If the effects of anthrax could have been limited to certain area only and for limited period, no doubt
that weapon would have been used...

 

Here we go another Bayer!

I knew that MacArthur had granted General Ishii, commander in charge of Unit 731, immunity in exchange for the full info on all the "useful" experiments conducted at the Camp.

What I was not aware of was that just like Bayer the ex-employees had exploited their knowledge after the war for corporate gain and paid nothing to their victims (which even compares badly with the derisory compensation paid by Bayer).

Hideo Futaki, Masaji Kitano and Ryochichi Naito founded the company Green Cross, a Japanese pharmaceutical company which flourished on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, and made them millions when it was sold to the Mitsubishi Group in 2001.

However Green Cross had a similar disregard for human life to those early pioneering criminals - it was found guilty of knowingly supplying HIV contaminated blood products.

 

I would point out that American tobacco execs make millions off of killing people and are called great men.

 

That has nothing to do with murderous testing that went on with Unit 731 on Allied POWs or Chinese citizens. People smoke because they want to. Those POWs and civilians had no choice in the matter. Your analogy was very poor.

 

My point was the leaders of the unit were successful execs despite what they did and while people have a say in tobacco, the cigarettes are manipulated to make them more addictive so and tobacco is marketed to kids as a way of being cool. AMericans also celebrate people who if they were selling other similar drugs would be called criminals.

 

Your point, clearly taken, has nothing to do with the seriousness of the subject matter in question.