Archaeologists have uncovered an infamous secret underground bunker once reportedly used by Japanese scientists in World War II to conduct human experiments on prisoners of war.
Archaeologists unearthed the so-called “horror bunker” in northeastern China in the Heilongjiang province, which Japan occupied from 1931 to 1945, LiveScience reported Tuesday. The Imperial Army’s Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit, used the bunker as a research laboratory, starting in 1941.
It is believed an estimated 3,000 to 250,000 men, women, and children were subjected to experiments and medical procedures, some lethal, under the direction of Dr. Shiro Isshi of Unit 731.
World War II ‘horror bunker’ run by infamous Unit 731 discovered in China https://t.co/jtzYz6pUdn
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Victims of the experiments were reportedly assaulted in numerous ways, exposed to dehydration, injected with the diseased blood of animals and kept inside low-pressure chambers until their eyeballs burst, LiveScience reported. Scientists also used victims as test subjects for grenades, flame throwers, and chemical weapons, operating on them without anesthesia, the outlet reported.
Following Japan’s surrender in 1945, the United States granted much of Unit 731 immunity from war crimes prosecution in exchange for “useful medical knowledge and data” on biological and chemical warfare to counter the perceived growing threat presented by the USSR, Medium reported. Much of the research taken from Unit 731 was then transferred to Fort Detrick, Maryland where it helped facilitate the U.S biological weapons program between 1943 and 1969, LiveScience reported. (RELATED: US Taxpayers Are Funding Nazi War Criminal’s Retirements)
The discovery of the bunker may reveal more about the extent of Unit 731’s war crimes. “It also highlights the ongoing legacy of Unit 731’s atrocities and their impact on global efforts to prevent biological warfare,” researchers from the Heilongjiang Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology told the South China Morning Post.
While archaeologists have only partially unearthed the U-shaped structure, researchers have already been able to distinguish what they believe to be laboratories, observation and dissection rooms, holding cells, and barracks, Live Science reported.