Letter from Tokyo

Service records of officers and soldiers before Japan's defeat in 1945, made public on May 15 by the country's National Archives, revealed that some were assigned to secret units in China: one in Nanjing, identified as Unit 1,644, and another in Guangzhou, numbered 8,604. The military personnel in these units reportedly conducted bacteriological experiments on human subjects.

Until now only Unit 731, located near Harbin – now in China's Heilongjiang province and then the capital of Manchukuo, a puppet state controlled by Tokyo – was known for carrying out such activities from 1938 until the end of World War II.

"The service records confirm the existence in China of a network of units conducting these experiments and coordinating their activities," explained Katsuo Nishiyama, emeritus professor at Shiga University of Medical Science and a specialist in Japan's imperial-era biological weapons programs.

Units 1,644 and 8,604 − with the one in Nanjing being the largest − were overseen, like Unit 731, by the Tokyo-based Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department. Their primary activity reportedly involved experimenting on humans to enable Japan to develop biological weapons, in violation of the 1925 Geneva Protocol prohibiting chemical and biological weapons.

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