25. Japan’s Depraved Doctor
Before he was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Army as a surgeon in 1921, Shiro Ishii (1892 – 1959) had been a brilliant medical student and doctor. He became one of Japan’s greatest bacterial research specialists and invented a revolutionary filtration system that could remove all bacteria from stagnant water. He turned to the dark side in 1933, and shifted his focus from preventing bacterial infections to weaponizing bacteria for use in warfare.
That year, Japan had seized Manchuria from China, so Ishii moved there with a team of researchers, and set up a biological experimentation operation, Unit 731. For guinea pigs, Ishii and his researchers experimented upon live humans, mostly captured Chinese soldiers, plus civilians deemed hostile to the Japanese occupation. They also experimented upon Soviet soldiers captured in border skirmishes, and on Allied POWs after Japan joined WWII.