New document reveals further details of Japanese chemical warfare unit

A document issued by a Chinese museum on Saturday has revealed new details of atrocities made by Japanese top-secret biological and chemical warfare unit during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (1931-45).

The 69-page file, which was released for the first time by the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by Japanese Army Unit 731 in Harbin, northeastern China's Heilongjiang Province, records detailed personal information of 52 staff members of Unit 731, including their names, household registration, participation in war crimes, and the track of their transfers between Unit 731 and other units, as well as their activities from the defeat of Japan in August 1945 to their return to Japan.

By studying the file, researchers found that there was a turnover of personnel between Unit 731 and Unit 516 in Heilongjiang's Qiqihar City. "Both of them were the base camps of Japanese biological and chemical warfare and had repeatedly carried out joint poison gas experiments," Jin Chengmin, curator of the museum, told China Media Group (CMG).

Citing the example of one Unit 731 member in the file who served in previous as a health officer of Unit 516, Jin said this illustrates that "their cooperation is very close and deserves further study."

Researchers also found out that four members of Unit 731 were sent to a medical university in Harbin controlled by Japanese army for a three-year "medical training" as military family students.

"This provides key information of Japan's military, political and medical cooperation in training young soldiers, which further proves that the implementation of human experiments and germ warfare is a top-down, organized, premeditated and systematic group crime of Japanese militarism," said Jin.

The file was discovered at the National Archives of Japan and returned to China in 2022 after multiple communications and negotiations.

Unit 731, established in Harbin in 1935, served as the nerve center of Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during the war. 

The unit conducted experiments on living human beings to test germ-releasing and chemical weapons. At least 3,000 people were used for human experiments and more than 300,000 people across China were killed by Japan's biological weapons.