To use all functions of this page, please activate cookies in your browser.
my.bionity.com
With an accout for my.bionity.com you can always see everything at a glance – and you can configure your own website and individual newsletter.
- My watch list
- My saved searches
- My saved topics
- My newsletter
Shirō Ishii
Shirō Ishii (石井四郎 Ishii Shirō?, 25 June 1892 – 9 October 1959) was a microbiologist and the lieutenant general of Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second Sino-Japanese War. Additional recommended knowledge
BiographyIshii was born in the former Shibayama Village of Sanbu District in Chiba Prefecture, and studied medicine at Kyoto Imperial University. Although he was considered a selfish, pushy, and sometimes disturbed individual, he excelled in his studies,[citation needed] and in 1922 was assigned to the 1st Army Hospital and Army Medical School in Tokyo. There his work impressed his superiors enough to gain him, two years later, post-graduate medical schooling back at the Kyoto Imperial University. Beginning in 1928, Ishii took a two-year tour of the West. In his travels, he did extensive research on the effects of biological warfare and chemical warfare developments from World War I onwards. It was a highly successful mission and helped win him the patronage of Sadao Araki, Minister of the Army. In 1932, he began his preliminary experiments in biological warfare as a secret project for the Japanese military. In 1936, Unit 731 was formed. Ishii built a huge compound -- more than 150 buildings over six square kilometers -- outside the city of Harbin, China. The research was secret, and the cover story was that Unit 731 was engaged in water-purification work. From 1940, Ishii was appointed Chief of the Biological Warfare Section of the Kwangtung Army, holding the post simultaneously with that of the Bacteriological Department of the Army Medical Academy. [1] In 1942, Ishii began field tests of germ warfare agents developed, and various methods of dispersion (i.e. via firearms, bombs etc.) both on Chinese prisoners of war and operationally on battlefields and against civilians in Chinese cities. Some historians[citation needed] estimate that tens of thousands died as a result of the bio-weapons (including bubonic plague, cholera, anthrax and others) deployed. His unit also conducted physiological experiments on human subjects, including vivisections, forced abortions, and simulated strokes and heart attacks. From 1942-1945, Ishii was Chief of the Medical Section of the Japanese First Army [2] In 1945, in the final days of the Pacific War and in the face of imminent defeat, Japanese troops blew up the headquarters of Unit 731 in order to destroy evidence of the research done there. As part of the cover-up, Ishii ordered 150 remaining subjects killed. Between 3,000 and 10,000 test subjects [citation needed], which Ishii and his peers called maruta (丸太; "logs," a reference to their view of subjects being inert, expendable entities) eventually died at the hands of Unit 731. Arrested by the American occupation authorities at the end of World War II, Ishii and Unit 731 leaders received immunity in 1946 from war-crimes prosecution before the Tokyo tribunal in exchange for germ warfare data based on human experimentation. On 6 May 1947, Douglas MacArthur wrote to Washington that «additional data, possibly some statements from Ishii probably can be obtained by informing Japanese involved that information will be retained in intelligence channels and will not be employed as "War Crimes" evidence.» [3] The deal was concluded in 1948.[4] Ishii was never prosecuted of any war crimes, and died of throat cancer at the age of 67. [5] See alsoReferencesBooks
Notes
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Shirō_Ishii". A list of authors is available in Wikipedia. |