Japan’s NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) recently aired three WWII documentaries, unprecedentedly releasing “confession recordings” of Unit 731 members.
For the first time, Japanese openly admitted that wartime Japanese military forces sexually assaulted women, forced bestiality, then performed vivisection on suspected pregnant women without anesthesia to observe whether fetuses were present. They confessed to locking numerous children in gas chambers to experiment with different gas concentrations’ lethal effects—revealing century-old atrocities in inhumane experimentation.
NHK obtained over 20 hours of post-WWII interrogation recordings from Russian authorities, with numerous newly revealed pieces of evidence disclosed publicly for the first time. Many Japanese citizens found it difficult to believe their beloved nation could be so evil.
On August 15, 1945, the Empire of Japan announced unconditional surrender to the Allies. This year, NHK specifically chose to broadcast three documentaries before the war anniversary: “Atomic Bomb Deaths—Hiroshima 72 Years of Truth,” “Complete Record of Mainland Bombing,” and “Unit 731’s Truth: Elite Doctors and Human Experimentation.” The third documentary details the post-war arrest and interrogation of twelve Unit 731 members in the Soviet Union.
Unit 731 of the Japanese Army in WWII, also called the “Ishii Unit,” was subordinate to the Imperial Japanese Army.
Unit 731 originally belonged to the Kwantung Army under the Imperial Japanese Army, serving as a secret military medical division specializing in biological warfare, bacterial warfare, and human experimentation research during the occupation of Manchuria.
Despite nominal claims of researching disease prevention and water purification, Unit 731 actually used nearly 10,000 living Chinese, Soviet, and Korean subjects in biological and chemical weapon effectiveness experiments, resulting in at least 3,000 deaths.
Unit 731’s base was located in Manchuria.
Unit 731’s most infamous crimes against humanity included frostbite experiments, low-temperature experiments, decompression experiments, poison gas experiments, low-temperature ceramic bacterial bomb explosions, and vivisection:
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Frostbite Experiments: Victims’ bare hands were exposed to -35°C outdoors while water was poured on them. After ten hours, hands were completely necrotic and blackish-purple. Upon awakening, hands were immersed in 15°C warm water to thaw; necrotic tissue was torn away, leaving only white bone.
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Low-Temperature Experiments: Victims’ hands were placed in -196°C speedfreeze cabinets, becoming hard as stone. Glass rods were used to smash the frozen hands; fingers would be beaten off one by one.
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Decompression Experiments: After placing victims in decompression chambers, their eyeballs protruded from sockets, and intestines, feces, and undigested food were expelled violently from the anus.
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Poison Gas Experiments: Adults, children, and birds were simultaneously locked in transparent gas chambers as different concentrations and types of poison gas were released. Victims first foamed at the mouth, then experienced internal bleeding with blood streaming from eyes, nose, and mouth, finally dying slowly from chronic gas poisoning.
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Low-Temperature Ceramic Bacterial Bomb Explosions: Dozens of victims of different nationalities were tied to wooden crosses; ceramic bacterial bombs around them were detonated, causing total skin and muscle decay, tissue necrosis, and limb amputation, leading to death from bacterial infection and tissue destruction.
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Vivisection: Frequently used as supplementary work in other experiments. After bacterial injections, if no symptoms appeared, victims were vivisected to observe organ activity. Or following human-animal mating experiments, suspected pregnant women were vivisected to observe for fetuses. Most dissections occurred without anesthesia because staff believed anesthetized subjects produced inaccurate research results.
According to the documentary’s trial recordings, Unit 731 military doctors and soldiers confessed to sexually assaulting women in northeastern China and vivisecting Chinese and Soviet civilians labeled as “death row inmates” to develop bacterial weapons. The documentary simultaneously revealed how elite-educated medical researchers participated.
Unit 731 conducted inhumane frostbite, poison gas experiments, and vivisections.
Analysts suggest NHK’s unprecedented public disclosure of Japanese military atrocities may relate to personnel changes in NHK’s upper management. Former Managerial Committee President Momii Katsuto, a close associate of Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, continuously blocked sensitive content broadcasts until Ueda Ryoichi, vice president of Mitsubishi Corporation, assumed the chairmanship late last year, allowing the situation to change direction.