Unit 731 [Paperback]

 

 

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Most of the information that you read on World War II involves the battles for Europe or the Pacific. We have books on the German concentration camps. But very few books are written on Japanese atrocities. This is one that should be read. With personal testimonies from the perpetrators this book adds an additional insight into what happened.

Along with the almost unreadable atrocities committed on the prisoners of Unit 731 was the almost unbelievable cover up contributed to by the United States government. In exchange for the secrets that the Japanese government had unravelled about biological weapons and the effects of frostbite, etc on the human body. The U.S. government was definately up to speed on what had happened but blocked the Japanese from being held accountable at pacific war crimes trials in exchange for all the information that the Japanese government provided. Everything was turned over to the U.S. This is something that needs to be explored more in depth and I would be interested to read.

All in all, this was a very good book. At times the thought of these things being done to human beings is almost incomprehensible, but it did happen. This is a book to read.

Mr. Gold's book fills an important niche in the historiography of this gruesome crime that even today is not acknowledged by the Japanese government. The testimony of the many participant "butchers" are shocking since so few express genuine remorse for what they did. In absolving former emperor Hirohito of any responsibility for the war, the dye was cast for the latter day denial by both citizens and government. In fact the charter for setting up unit 731 was approved by the emperor. Today while every nazi camp guard is hunted down relentlessly, these major criminals-- who injected horrendous substances into people (i.e. horse urine, acetone etc.) who forced people to drink liquid mustard gas, who subjected people to pressure chambers until their eyes popped, froze/burned people alive to observe their resistance to temperature extremes and dissected women without anesthesia and took their babies and killed them --have gone unpunished.
While we condemn Dr. Mengele and his henchmen, what unit 731 did both in scale and devious ways of torturing and killing people surpasses Mengele. To compound this horrible crime, the estimated 10,000 or so victims who died in these experiments must be turning in their watery graves (their ashes were mostly dumped in the river) to know that general McArthur exchanged the gruesome data of their experiments for the freedom from prosecution of these brutes. All people with a sense of justice should demand that a full accounting be made of this crime of which we still know so little.

Although the majority of literature on WWII atrocities focuses on Nazi Germany and it's "Final Solution," other horrible acts were being committed as well in Asia by the Russians and Japanese.
Among these were Stalin's Gulags, the Japanese comfort women, Bataan Death March and Rape of Nanking.
Gold's book, "Unit 731: Testimony," takes a look at another wartime atrocity the Japanese have refused to own up to for the past 50 years: a program set up by the military to experiment with biological weapons on humans and other heinous human tortures that were expounded as "scientific advancement."
Gold's book is divided into two sections, a Historical Overview in which he explains how the idea of a human experimentation lab began in the Russo-Japanese War and became a horrific reality due to one man, Ishii Shiro; and a second section in which testimonies are given on criminal acts by the participants, including researchers, Kenpeitai officers, nurses and professors.
The historical overview lays out factual groundwork of Unit 731 and gives explicit details on some of the experiments, including live autopsies, biological tests and frostbite trials; which is some of the most disturbing literature I have ever read. Even as the bilogical weapons scare makes the headlines today, Gold gives proof that this isn't a new event in the world as the Japanese unleashed fleas with the Cholera disease on the Chinese citizens. After the war is over in 1945, Gold continues to explain how Unit 731 was covered up (with American help), and how some of the war-time criminals became wealthy professors and businessmen in Japan and set up world-wide companies like Green Cross. Gold also discusses the Japanese's unwillingness to admit their guilt about such crimes and how the majority of the Japanese citizens either don't know of their country's war-time atrocities or scoff at such notions as unfair accusations. (And people wonder how there are nut-jobs out there who dispute the Holocaust as ever happening.)
The testimony section is equally as shocking in that the participants recall their brutal crimes with some even trying to defend their actions.
Overall, this is a very disturbing and powerful book that I highly recommend. It's one of those books where the reader is shocked as they read the words and a book that will force the reader to keep thinking about it even if they are not reading it at the time. I can only give it four stars though in that as Gold cites very good sources on Unit 731, including personal testimony, he hints at some very serious allegations about the US during the Korean War, including biological bombs dropped by US Troops and the creation of the AIDS virus by the American military, that he gives no evidence to. To throw out accusations like that should force the author into making two choices - backing it up with facts, documents, or other info - or leaving it out of the book.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Japanese belong in hell
This is one book about the cruelty of the Japs. Others include "Flyboys" which tells about downed airmen brutally treated, and with the end of the war imminent, they set the... Read more

Published on Dec 30 2006 by American Honor

5.0 out of 5 stars A War Crimes Indictment for Japan and the USA
As some of you know I have already written a review but the reviewer Hiromi said that everything in this book was mostly a lie, so I spent a few months checking things up and it... Read more

Published on July 14 2004 by OverTheMoon

5.0 out of 5 stars this is a record of human's cruelest side done by the japs
Some of the cruelest deeds of Japan's war in Asia did not occur on the battlefield, but in quiet, antiseptic medical wards in obscure parts of the continent. Read more

Published on April 3 2004 by FortheTruth

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book!
this book reviewed the cruel and unhumanistic side of the japs.

the great pain suffered by the Chinese people. definitely worth reading. thumbs up!

Published on April 3 2004 by FortheTruth

5.0 out of 5 stars that Hiromi Japanese coward!
This "Hiromi" really must be a shameless japanese coward! if the book states the truth about all the sins Japanese has done during the WW II, ¡°she ¡±will definitely... Read more

Published on April 2 2004 by antiJapanese

5.0 out of 5 stars bloody facts, guts wrenching story
the arocity commited by jap and the war launched by them is a sign of jap culture, people all over the world should be careful, they attacked China, russia, US, UK, Germany... Read more

Published on April 2 2004 by nighmarer

1.0 out of 5 stars Testimonies of the Brain-washed?
It is true that while the "Nanking Massacre/Rape of Nanking" has loads of "eyewitness" documents of "objective" foreigners (that actually validate... Read more

Published on Mar 29 2004 by Hiromi

5.0 out of 5 stars A War Crimes Indictment for Japan and the USA
This book is probably not only an indictment of Japanese Human Biological Experiments but a condemnation of a US military industrial system that allowed the perpetrators to escape... Read more

Published on Feb 2 2004 by OverTheMoon

4.0 out of 5 stars Required reading
Hal Gold, Unit 731: Testimony (Yenbooks, 1996)

Over the fifty years since World War II, we have been made aware of atrocities committed during those years. Read more

Published on Feb 15 2001 by Robert P. Beveridge

4.0 out of 5 stars Unit 731
Very non-sensationalized and fair presentation. reads like a text book.

Published on Nov 27 2000

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