Located in the small railroad hub of Harbin, Manchuria, Unit 731 was a highly secretive biological warfare plant led by Dr. Ishii Shiro, a university educated doctor that pushed for an increase in the army's study of biological weapons, his area of expertise.

Group Picture of Unit 731 Members

Though outlawed in 1925 by the Geneva Convention (which Japan refused), biological and chemical weapons are
indeed an ideal weapon for any army. They are very cheap and easy to make, as well as easy to detonate, making
them almost irresistible to any government looking for an inexpensive means of death. As the desire for such a division
grew within the Japanese government, Dr. Ishii's importance grew proportionally. By 1936 his death factories were in
operation. Russian, Chinese, American, and Korean soldiers and civilians were subjected to horrific tests and
experiments in the name of biological warfare.

Dr. Ishii

In 1932, a few months after Japanese troops moved into Manchuria, Dr. Ishii and his colleagues followed them in disguised as a water purification plant. Instead they built the Zhoghma Fortress, a prison so named because of its location on the outskirts of Harbin and its intimidating appearance. Experiments were done on the prisoners until 1935 when jailbreak forced them to shut down the Zhoghma Fortress and build a new testing facility closer into Harbin at Pingfang. The new testing compound had over 150 buildings covering six square kilometers. It was the main testing complex up until the war's end in 1945. Approximately 9,000 test subjects eventually died at the center from the experiments, while an estimated 10,000 more died during the field tests of cholera, bubonic plague, anthrax, and other diseases.

All Picutres on this page courtesy of http://www.sjwar.org/Unit731.htm

This exhibit was researched and designed by John Charles Andris.

This exhibit and museum were created during an introductory seminar on the Asia-Pacific War, taught at Wake Forest University during the spring semester 2002.
The material and opinions are those of their respective authors and do not represent the views of the University or the Department of History.