Horrors of Japan's germ warfare bared
13/8/2005 10:15
Invading Japanese troops set up 60 germ warfare units from 1932 to 1945 in
China and victimized at least 270,000 civilians, a Chinese professor
said.
During World War II, Japanese troops sent special germ warfare units
and installed a research and production center for germ weapons in China, said
Wang Xuan, a professor leading a legal group to assist World War II victims
suing Japan for damages inflicted by its germ warfare.
Japanese troops even
used germ weapons against Chinese civilians in battles and released plague,
anthracnose and glanders on mountains, forests, rivers and fields, victimizing
thousands of Chinese people, she said.
"However, such brutal and evil crimes
committed by the Japanese troops, such as bacteria experiments on human bodies
and germ warfare, are still rarely known to the world today," she
said.
According to research by Wang and other scholars, Japanese troops set
up the first germ warfare experimental unit in 1932 in Beiyinhe, a district of
Wuchang County in northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province.
In accordance
with a secret order from the Japanese emperor, the invading troops established
the notorious Unit 731 in Harbin in 1936 to develop and produce germ weapons
based on bacteria experiments on human bodies.
Following the establishment of
Unit 731, germ warfare units were set up in succession in China's major cities
from north to south, including Changchun, Nanjing, Beijing and
Guangzhou.
With 60 units and branches across China, germ warfare divisions
involved more than 10,000 troops. In 1945 when the war ended, Unit 731 still had
more than 3,000 staff members.
Unit 731 in Harbin and Unit 100 in Changchun
manufactured a great amount of plague and glanders during the war, Wang
said.
Unit 731 could produce about 600 kilograms of anthracnose bacteria in
one month alone, while Unit 100 manufactured 100kg of anthracnose bacteria and
more than 500kg of glanders bacteria in 1941 and
1942.
(Xinhua)
Xinhua
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