Epidemic Prevention And Water Purification Department on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
The Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department was a department of the
The Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department was a department of the Imperial Japanese Army
The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA; , ''Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun'', "Army of the Greater Japanese Empire") was the principal ground force of the Empire of Japan from 1871 to 1945. It played a central role in Japan’s rapid modernization during th ...
from 1936 to the dissolution of the Army in 1945. While its public mission was to prevent the spread of disease and monitor water supply, several field armies also assigned units the mission of manufacturing biological weapons
Biological agents, also known as biological weapons or bioweapons, are pathogens used as weapons. In addition to these living or replicating pathogens, toxins and biotoxins are also included among the bio-agents. More than 1,200 different kin ...
. Many units also performed unethical human experimentation
Unethical human experimentation is human experimentation that violates the principles of medical ethics. Such practices have included denying patients the right to informed consent, using pseudoscientific frameworks such as race science, and tort ...
, such as Unit 731
, short for Manchu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentat ...
, in which tens of thousands of prisoners of war and civilians were tortured to death over the course of years.
Organization
The department was organized under the following system: * Unit 691 was under control of theKwantung Army
The Kwantung Army (Japanese language, Japanese: 関東軍, ''Kantō-gun'') was a Armies of the Imperial Japanese Army, general army of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1919 to 1945.
The Kwantung Army was formed in 1906 as a security force for th ...
.
** The central office of Unit 691 was Unit 731
, short for Manchu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentat ...
, infamous for its secret commitment to chemical
A chemical substance is a unique form of matter with constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Chemical substances may take the form of a single element or chemical compounds. If two or more chemical substances can be combin ...
and biological weapons and performing human experimentation. It had several branches, all of which were involved with biological warfare research:
*** Unit 162 ( Linkou)
*** Unit 643 ( Hailin)
*** Unit 673 ( Sunwu)
*** Unit 319 was another sub-unit, which apparently were principally devoted to water purification.
* Unit 1855 (Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
) was under control of the Japanese Northern China Area Army and performed human experimentation.
* Unit Ei 1644 or Tama Unit (Nanjing
Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400.
Situated in the Yang ...
) was under control of the Japanese Central China Area Army and performed human experimentation.
** 12 different sub-Units (Unknown names) (Unknown locations)
* Unit 8604 or Nami Unit (Guangzhou
Guangzhou, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Canton or Kwangchow, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Guangdong Provinces of China, province in South China, southern China. Located on the Pearl River about nor ...
) was under control of the Japanese Southern China Area Army and performed human experimentation.
* Unit 9420 or Oka Unit (Singapore
Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...
), under control of the Southern Expeditionary Army Group
The was a general army of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. It was responsible for all military operations in South East Asian and South West Pacific campaigns of World War II. Its military symbol was NA.
The Southern Expediti ...
and probably performed human experimentation.
* Unit 100
was an Imperial Japanese Army facility called the Kwantung Army Warhorse Disease Prevention Shop that focused on the development of biological weapons during World War II. It was operated by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police. Its h ...
was operated by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police
Military police (MP) are law enforcement agencies connected with, or part of, the military of a state. Not to be confused with civilian police, who are legally part of the civilian populace. In wartime operations, the military police may supp ...
. It was located in Mokotan, Manchukuo
Manchukuo, officially known as the State of Manchuria prior to 1934 and the Empire of Great Manchuria thereafter, was a puppet state of the Empire of Japan in Northeast China that existed from 1932 until its dissolution in 1945. It was ostens ...
, a village just south of the city of Changchun
Changchun is the capital and largest city of Jilin, Jilin Province, China, on the Songliao Plain. Changchun is administered as a , comprising seven districts, one county and three county-level cities. At the 2020 census of China, Changchun ha ...
.
** Unit (Unknown name) (Dairen
Dalian ( ) is a major sub-provincial port city in Liaoning province, People's Republic of China, and is Liaoning's second largest city (after the provincial capital Shenyang) and the third-most populous city of Northeast China (after Shenyang ...
)
** Unit 543 ( Hailar)
* Unit 516 (Qiqihar
Qiqihar (also spelled Tsitsihar) is the second-largest city in the Heilongjiang province of China, in the west central part of the province. The built-up (or metro) area made up of Longsha, Tiefeng and Jianhua districts had 959,787 inhabitants, w ...
)
** Unit 525
** Unit 526
* Unit 160, possibly a typo (referring to unit 100).
The 1996 book ''Germ Warfare Units'' (細菌戦部隊) contains testimonies that all of these units engaged in biological weapon development.
Equipment
Each office was equipped with water purification facilities and trucks to transport water to where it was needed. The water filtration equipment was designed byShirō Ishii
Surgeon General was a Japanese microbiologist and Military medicine, army medical officer, who served as the director of Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army. Ishii led the development and application of biological ...
of Unit 731
, short for Manchu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentat ...
.関亮 『軍医サンよもやま物語―軍医診療アラカルト』 光人社〈光人社NF文庫〉、1997年。
References
{{IJA special research units Imperial Japanese Army Japanese biological weapons program 1936 establishments in Japan War crimes in Manchukuo Japanese war crimes in China