19. This Evil Doctor Planned to Infect America With the Plague
If Dr. Ishii had had his way, US civilians would have experienced first hand what his victims in China had endured. On March 26th, 1945, he finalized plans for Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night, to attack America with biological weapons. The operation called for five I-400 long-range submarines, each carrying three Aichi M6A1 Seiran floatplanes, to cross the Pacific Ocean. Upon reaching the US West Cost, the submarines were to launch the float planes, loaded with plague-infected fleas, to attack San Diego.
As one of the pilots put it in 1998: “I was told directly by Shiro Ishii of the kamikaze mission “Cherry Blossoms at Night”, which was named by Ishii himself. I was a leader of a squad of seventeen. I understood that the mission was to spread contaminated fleas in the enemy’s base and contaminate them with plague.” The operation was scheduled for September 22nd, 1945, but the atomic bombing of Japan in August ended the war. Japan formally surrendered on September 2nd, less than three weeks before the scheduled launch date of Cherry Blossoms at Night.