12. In addition to forced amputations, Allied POWs were subjected to vivisection and the removal, partial or complete, of major organs for scientific study
Whilst Western soldiers were treated inexcusably poorly, especially so by Unit 731, some of the worst horrors were reserved for Chinese POWs due to the racialist views of China by Imperial Japan. In the course of their experiments, Unit 731 routinely conducted vivisection – the performance of surgery on a living person for the purposes of study – on prisoners. Thousands of men, women, and children housed in POW Camps were subjected to these procedures, often resulting in the deaths of those unwillingly operated upon. These test subjects were infected, deliberately or otherwise, with serious diseases, whereafter their organs were removed to observe the effects of said disease on the human body.
One noteworthy instance involved the surgical removal of a prisoner’s stomach, after which their esophagus and small intestine were connected. Other unfortunate POWs had parts of their brains, lungs, and livers removed, to study the capacity of the human body to endure significant losses. It has been suggested by Imperial Army surgeon Ken Yuasa that the practice of vivisection on captured Chinese was not confined to Unit 731, but instead was widespread within the Imperial Japanese Armed Forces with more than 1,000 individuals performing said surgeries. This has yet to be definitively corroborated, but evidence exists to support this gruesome interpretation.