UNIT 731 - Japanese Human Experimentation Program Unit 731 did not describe what happened inside its compound as torture. They called it research, as any government would do. But here's the truth behind the documents. Unit 731 was the Japanese human research team that made the Nazi's look like boyscouts. Doctors infected prisoners with plague, anthrax, glanders, cholera, typhoid and tetanus, then tracked what happened as disease moved through the body. Many victims were cut open alive because death altered the organs, and researchers wanted to see the damage before decomposition started. U.S. archives later received hundreds of pages documenting human reactions to anthrax, glanders and plague. Other teams studied cold injury. Prisoners’ limbs were exposed to extreme cold so doctors could measure when circulation failed, when tissue froze and what happened during rewarming. In winter months the prisoners were tied to a post with their hands suspended out infront. Water would be thrown over them to allow them to freeze, then the ice would be beaten off with a club. Eventually the fingers fell off along with the ice. The summer months were bypassed by using industrial freezers to place their hands in. Beginning at -10C and dropping to -70C where it was noted the flesh fell off the bone and the subject's hands were reduced to just the bone. Full body exposure was conducted between -40C and -50C to fil the prisoners until death. Then came battlefield testing. Prisoners were tied in open test areas while ceramic bombs carrying plague-infected fleas burst overhead. Researchers measured whether the insects survived, found hosts and transmitted disease. Failed attempts to contaminate water meant that bacteria diluted too quickly, pushing the program toward insects and aerial delivery. Human beings became test equipment for questions ethical medicine could not answer. What dose kills and how fast? Which organs fail first? Can disease survive to be used as a weapon? story continues in the comments: