A newly disclosed archive concerning the large-scale biological warfare crimes of Japan's notorious Unit 731 provides further confirmation that its atrocities were systematic, organized, and state-backed criminal acts.
The Exhibition Hall of Evidences of Crime Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army in northeast China's Harbin on Saturday unveiled a handwritten confession by Tsunenori Kato, a commander of the Hailar branch of Unit 731.
Kato's confession provided detailed accounts of Unit 731's organizational structure, core missions, leadership system, experimental activities, plans for biological warfare against the Soviet Union and the operations of its regional branches. It clearly establishes the criminal nature of Unit 731's engagement in biological warfare, sabotage, and live human experimentation, according to researchers.
"We conducted a detailed review of the confession, and found that Tsunenori Kato documented, from his personal perspective, the organizational structure, personnel composition, and criminal activities of the Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army. He repeatedly described in detail practices including human experimentation and bacteriological research. The confession meticulously recorded the unit's leaders, Shiro Ishii and Masaji Kitano, as well as its eight internal departments -- each with clearly listed names," said Jin Shicheng, director of the Department of Publicity, Education and Exhibition at the Exhibition Hall of Evidence of Crimes Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army.
The confession also disclosed the unit's operational quotas, including the scaling of white mouse breeding from 500 to 1,000 rodents and a monthly delivery of 300 mice, as well as preparations for flea cultivation -- revealing the full criminal chain of Unit 731, from research and development at headquarters to logistical support at branch units and eventual field deployment.
According to the confession, the different branches of Unit 731 were established as strongholds for waging bacteriological warfare against the Soviet Union. It confirms that the planning and implementation of such warfare were uniformly directed by the upper echelons of Japan's military.
"Notably, the confession recorded that in June 1945, Tokyo issued orders to halt bacteriological warfare plans. This clearly demonstrates that Unit 731's biological warfare operations were not the isolated actions of a single military unit, but rather a large-scale, top down organized state crime with directions from Tokyo," Jin said.
The original document of the confession is preserved at a regional branch of the Russian Federal Security Service and was declassified upon the Pushkin Scientific Library's application. In February this year, a photocopied version was donated to the Exhibition Hall of Evidences of Crime Committed by Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army.
Archival evidence reveals Japan's Unit 731 crimes as premeditated state-led atrocity
