Unit 731, short for Manshu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment, and Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

What did the Unit 731 do?

Started as an agency to promote public health, Unit 731 was meant to conduct research that would benefit Japanese soldiers, such as learning more about the ways in which the human body can withstand hunger and thirst and fight diseases.

What experiments did Shiro Ishii do?

In these facilities Ishii and his men would perform experiments on live humans, including but not limited to: infecting living subjects with plague rats, forced pregnancies, vivisections (often conducted without anaesthesia), and inducing frostbite and trying to cure it.