Unit 100

Unit 100 was a secret Imperial Japanese Army facility that focused on the development of biological weapons during World War II. It was operated by the Kempeitai, the Japanese military police. It was located in Shenyang (瀋陽) China and was disguised as an "epidemic prevention and water supply" unit.

Additional recommended knowledge

Daily Sensitivity Test

How to ensure accurate weighing results every day?

How to quickly check pipettes?

Mission

The main purpose of Unit 100 was to conduct research about diseases originating from animals. As most armies were still heavily dependent on horses, the Imperial Japanese Army hoped to find ways to kill them and therefore to weaken military power. Furthermore, they hoped to spread disease via animal carriers. To this end, experiments were also conducted with human beings, but little record or proof of human experimentation has been found. In practice, Unit 731 was the group tasked with developing biological weapons against humans. Although smaller than Unit 731, Unit 100 was still a large organization. Its annual bacteria production capacity was projected to reach 1,000 kg of anthrax, 500 kg of glanders, and 100 kg of red rust (see Rust). They never reached this goal, however, because of equipment shortages.

Senior Sgt. Kazuo Mitomo described some of Unit 100's human experiments:

"I put as much as a gram of heroin into some porridge and gave this porridge to an arrested Chinese citizen who ate it; about 20 minutes later he lost consciousness and remained in that state until he died 15-16 hours later. We knew that such a dose of heroin is fatal, but it did not make any difference to us whether he died or lived. On some of the prisoners I experimented 5-6 times, testing the action of Korean bindweed, bactal and castor oil seeds. One of the prisoners of Russian nationality became so exhausted from the experiments that no more could be performed on him, and Matsui ordered me to kill that Russian by giving him an injection of potassium cyanide. After the injection, the man died at once. Bodies were buried in the unit's cattle cemetery."

Unit chief Yujiro Wakamatsu ordered Hirazakura to purchase hundreds of cattle and put them to pasture along the Soviet border northeast of Hailar, ready to be infected by airborne dispersion. It was hoped that in the event of a Soviet invasion these infected livestock would mingle with local herds to cause epidemics and to destroy food supplies.

Biological warfare agents

The following potential agents were tested:

• Glanders: Kuwabara gave testimony after WWII that Unit 100 released horses infected with Glanders.
• Anthrax

See also

• Japanese war crimes
• List of Japanese War Atrocities in Changchun (長春) and Mukden (奉天)
• Kantogun
• Second Sino-Japanese War

References