Unit 731: The Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department of Kwantany Army in Japan

Have you ever questioned why and how the US government decided to drop those two nuclear bombs in Japan in the World War II? It is still a universal concern while many disapproval have made toward its humanity. In a book that I’ve read recently, from the point of view of an eyewitness, Yamaoka Michiko, the author of story “Eight hundred meters from the Hypocenter”, shows how humanity was exchanged with the ambition of a nation by reviving a heartbroken experience when she witnessed her hometown was destroyed by such a terrific violence in the war.

1. The bombings killed 129,000-246,000 people in total over two to four months. The Japanese army managed to kill over 300,000 people in a single city over a span of just over a month. People really shouldn't be calling the bombings truculent when Japan's allies, the nazis, started the Holocaust and committed genocide .2. The US even gave Japan a chance to surrender before the bombs were dropped by issuing the Potsdam declaration which stated that if they didn’t surrender, Japan would face “prompt and utter destruction”. Japan did not surrender so they had to face the consequence. The US could have just dropped the bombs without any warning, but they decided to give Japan a chance to surrender first. This shows that the US were not inhumane in the bombings of Hiroshima and

Before John Hersey’s novel, Hiroshima, Americans viewed Japanese as cruel and heartless people. This warped perspective caused the majority of American citizens to feel complacent about the use of the atomic bomb against civilians. Americans, in many ways, were blinded by their own ignorance to notice the severity of the destruction suffered by not only the city of Hiroshima but, more importantly, the people who lived there. The six testimonies in Hiroshima illustrate the strength and optimistic attitude of the Japanese people. In this essay, I will discuss the feelings towards the ethics surrounding the use of the atomic bomb, next I will look at two testimonies and how their lives

bombing actions on Japanese countries, which were Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were shown as justified actions is the U.S. wanted to save innocent American lives during the war. This is because in document C it stated, “We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save thousands and thousands of young Americans.” This quote explains that if the United States didn’t end the war any sooner, thousands and thousands of innocent American lives would have been lost. During the war, Japan was the cause of many American deaths. President Truman wanted to decrease the death rate of Americans lives. He thought that if there was a way to cause much causality on Japan and limit the number of the deaths of American soldiers. This idea that President Truman created became a reality because this idea was the use of the atomic bomb. When the U.S. used the atomic bomb on Japan, it ended the agony of war, saved many American soldiers’ lives, and destroyed Japan’s power to create a war. This quote shows that if the U.S. didn’t stop Japan from surrendering the war, it would’ve costed them a lot because it would cause many casualties of young American soldiers and innocent

President Truman and the United States were not justified in using this weapon to force the Japanese to surrender. First of all, the use of this weapon was inhumane to the Japanese civilians. The weapon resulted in an estimated value of 129,000-226,000 deaths. Even after the tragedy, survivors were affected by the high amounts of radiation in their bodies. Most of them contracted cancer and faced the consequences of the bomb. Survivors had to battle burns, starvation, and even severe sickness. Survivors also had to battle with the “inner scars”, physiological damage to the brain. While they were treated for radiation illnesses, many were left traumatized, some the only survivors from their family. Some who still bore inner scars committed suicide. For the rest of their lives, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors would be shunned by the Japanese society and haunted by the bomb's’ radiation. The usage of this bomb was inhumane

sought for the results of those rotting limbs, torture, and deaths. When the U.S. defeated Japan, they were solely in charge of dealing with Japan, because the Soviet Union and Britain had not gotten into as much conflict with Japan as America had. MacArthur began the investigation of Unit 731 because he dearly wished for the information garnered from these experiments, believing it to be invaluable to the military. Murray Sanders interviewed every person involved with Unit 731 and not one person spoke up. If America did not find out, then it was believed that the Soviet Union would get the information from Japan. Due to the Cold War beginning, Americans were hasty to ascertain the information first. Frustrated with the lack of direction with the investigation, MacArthur ordered that Unit 731 be given immunity from postwar trials. Surprisingly, the Japanese did not accept. Then, MacArthur offered $2,000 ($22,000 in 2017) to each researcher. This is noteworthy because this was Americans effectively paying for the torture and death of countless people. After that, a single man conceded information and then a domino effect

Now that the camp was set the scientists had to make a deal to give all of the information to japanese government so they could be granted immunity from the war crimes they are going to commit(wikipedia). And now that the plan is set in motion they could start what would be known as Unit 731. The victims of the unit were

The reasons for the Japanese behaving as they did were complex. The Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) indoctrinated its soldiers

     The second class of experiments involved medical research. Doctor’s would conduct medical experiments, which included the gas chamber and epidemic disease. Some victims were killed in gas chambers. This would allow better research to help develop ways of stopping such chemical attacks by the enemy or to help improve there way of killing there victims by showing them the effects of phosphorus and mustard gas burns. Doctors would also inject the victims with diseases such as malaria, smallpox, cholera and spotted fever. They would do so in order to observe the effectiveness of vaccines. Doctors would also break bones and flesh and then infect the wounds. They would also perform operations on the victims without administering anesthesia; all victims of these operations were killed during or shortly after.

“As the war progressed and it became obvious that American technology was superior to Japan’s, the Japanese began utilizing kamikaze pilots to attack Allied ships in the Pacific to balance the power” (Document 3). The Japanese were sending their troops on these planes knowing they would not make it out alive, and the men knew it too. They were practically sent on suicide missions. They already did not value each individual life and while what we did to them may have seemed extreme, it protected our men.

The doctors who examined the incoming prisoners and sorted them also worked in these hospitals performing medical research on the ill. This medical research was mostly placing the Jewish prisoners in ice water baths then monitoring them until they died. This research was mostly used to prevent hypothermia if German Pilots ever ended up being stranded in the ocean. Some of the experiments performed by doctors often had no research purpose at all, such as experiments involving eye color changing using chemical droppers and the surgical sewing of children together to create siamese twins. Auschwitz was the largest death camp with 20,000 Jews being killed a day and 39 subcamps.

Dower talks about the tendency in American culture to characterize the Japanese that relied on notions of stunted civilization or development. "The Japanese as a collectivity were diagnosed as suffering not merely from an inferiority complex or emotional repression, or neurosis, but from the whole gamut of mental and emotional disorders found among maladjusted individuals in the West." (135) Moreover, "the metaphor of the child was used in a manner that highlighted the overlapping nature of immaturity, primitivism, violence, and emotional instability as key concepts for understanding the Japanese." (143) I believe that this two helped use believe that what we were doing to them and what was to befall, the nuclear bombs, were not to a civilized race, therefore making it more okay.

The conflict between the Allies and the Axis was a horrific and deadly one, which consisted of genocide and mass bombings. Innocent citizens were killed with the estimated sixty million casualties, which lead to the question as to the morality of the different actors—Germany, Japan, England and America— in WWII. In order to truly assess their guilt, meaning their moral innocence, each country will be measured upon the morality of their intent and execution of the different controversial mass killings that Germany (the Holocaust), Japan (Nanking), and the Allied forces (Dresden and Hiroshima) took part in. This hierarchy of evil can be judged upon how Japan’s tyranny and the Allies’ area bombing compare to the genocide performed by Germany. Similarly, these countries will be judged on the whether these different acts were premeditated versus in response to another act, as well as the proportionality to which these acts were carried out. This measurement of evil places each party on an overall scale, which depicts the total guilt that each country or countries deserve. WWII exemplifies that while war is an unavoidable aspect of human nature, there is no such thing as a just war. Similarly, while there is a definite hierarchy of morality between the different actors of WWII, each of the countries at play are immoral in their intent and execution of the attacks on opposing countries.

During world war two, countries on both sides committed war crimes that shocked both the people involved, and the globe. From 1937 through to 1945, the Japanese justified their treatment of the Australian prisoners of war at the Burma railway with three things. The Japanese believed that their bushido code allowed them to treat the Australian this way, their ethics was one of complete brutality and hardship, and the Japanese soldiers were being fed false propaganda that showed a dehumanized view of the Australians. These three statements demonstrate that the Japanese atrocities committed at Burma, were, in the eyes of the Japanese, fair and just.

From the Japanese standpoint, their destiny began with two planes (pika) and an extraordinary sound (don). This great massacre killed millions but for those who survived, it left a traumatizing memory.9 “The foremost characteristic of the physical damages caused by the Nagasaki atomic bombing was the tremendous, instantaneous destruction wreaked by the blast wind and the subsequent fires”.10 According to researchers, it is claimed to be that the Japanese suffer from historical amnesia. They find it ultimately impossible to confront their past that would in turn bring back their horrifying memories caused by the atomic bomb.11 The Japanese are trying to come to some kind of understanding as to why the Americans allowed this bombing to occur. Some think it is nothing less than a war crime. The truth of the matter is that the bomb