February 24, 2016 • 27 mins
After the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo, the punishment that Japanese forces doled out in China for their part in helping the U.S. was brutal and devastating. From terror occupations to biological warfare, many of China's towns were systematically destroyed.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class somehow Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly frying Can, I'm Tracy Wilson. So we recently talked
about James Doolittle and the US Army Air Corps raid
that he led on Japan in retaliation for Pearl Harbor,
(00:23):
And if you listen to that episode, you may recall
that we spoke only briefly about Doolittle's cruise landing in
China and getting help from both civilian and military people
there in getting rescued and getting home. But while we
didn't talk about in that episode, that one was pretty
lighthearted overall, uh was the price that China paid for
assisting the US in this mission. And while US military
(00:45):
leaders knew that Japan would likely take action against China
for their part in the Doolittle raid, the extent of
that retaliation hasn't really gotten that much attention in terms
of the history of the war, and this particular episode
is going to deal with that, and we have to
put a pretty serious content warning on it. The atrocities
(01:05):
of war are often discussed, but the actual details are
often really incredibly difficult to contend with I mean even here,
we're not going to include every thing, because there are
a lot of horrible stories that got read in the research,
but a lot of times those kinds of things overall
get kind of left out or glossed over, and some many,
in fact, of the things that happened in China after
(01:27):
the Doolittle Raid we're challenging for me, I know, just
in the research process. But this is a really important
story to tell. So if you think some of this
we're going to get into some pretty rough experiments and torture,
We're not going to linger on them, but we will
describe some of them. So if you think that might
be too intense for you or for any younger history
buffs that you listen with, this is your official heads up.
(01:49):
This is basically a story about Japan punishing China, and
the Japanese plans have punished China began almost immediately after
the Doolittle Raid. There were already Japanese occupation forces many
Chinese locations, including commercial commercial centers, key coastal positions, and Manchuria,
and those occupation forces were in place because before World
War Two started, Japan and China were locked in their
(02:12):
own conflict, the Second Sina Japanese War. So we're gonna
talk a little bit about that conflict, although this is
admittedly an abbreviated version. Japan had really been eyeing China's
national resources for quite some time, and in nineteen thirty
one is China's internal strife between the nationalists and Mao
Zutungue leg communists uh Manchuria was invaded and occupied by
(02:34):
Japanese forces. This was by no means a small region
of China we're talking about. It's about the size of
Germany and France combined in the League of Nations got
involved after China requested their help. And while the League
condemned the actions of the Japanese, there really wasn't any
retribution for the aggression and for them just moving in.
(02:55):
But Japan did leave the League of Nations over the
whole report Japan contain and you to spread into territory
in China, working for a Manchuria as a foothold, until
just about all of northern China was occupied by Japan.
Because the Nationalists of their Shangkai check we're focused on
trying to subdue this communist uprising that was going on.
(03:15):
They weren't putting any They weren't really putting up any
resistance against Japanese troops, which is why Japan was able
to occupy so much of China during this time. But
eventually China's military did make a bigger effort to push
back against Japan's occupation, and the Chinese nationalists and Mao's
Communist Party actually joined forces against their foe in the
(03:37):
Sino Japanese War beginning in nine seven. I think we
might have touched on this, just really really briefly in
that four part series we did a while back about
China under Chairman Mouth, So if you're looking for that
part of that story, there's stuff on it in the archive. Um.
The Marco Polo Bridge incident officially catalyzed the war in
(03:59):
July nineteen thirty seven. On the evening of July seven,
shots were fired between Chinese soldiers and Japanese troops stationed
at the bridge while the latter were doing training exercises.
While the full details of this incident in terms of
what happened up to that point remained really unclear, there
was a Japanese soldier who was unaccounted for. When Japanese
(04:20):
soldiers tried to enter a small walled town outside of
Beijing to search for their missing man. They were met
with resistance. The situation soon escalated and gunfire erupted from
both sides. Negotiations failed to get anywhere, and Japanese infantry
moved in in greater numbers, eventually leading to his full
scale invasion. The Rape of Nine King, in which an
(04:42):
estimated one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand people depending
on the source you look at, were killed by the
Japanese UH, thousands of which were women who were raped
prior to being killed, took place in December of seven,
early on in the Second Sino Japanese War. The brutality
of the Rape of Nine King, including practices such as
dismembering victims before killing them, burning people alive, brutally drowning
(05:08):
victims UH, set the tone for the entire Sino Japanese War,
and the conflict dragged on for years after that, well
into World War Two. The situation between China and Japan
in nineteen forty, which was two years before the Doolittle Raid,
as often characterized as a stalemate. Both sides were struggling
and depleted, so while Japan couldn't make a true victory happened.
(05:31):
China also couldn't manage to push the occupying Japanese forces
out of the country. Japan's brutality throughout the conflict and
its walk out on the League of Nations hadn't really
helped the country's global reputation. In an effort to cripple
Japanese resources and assist China, economic sanctions against Japan had
ramped up progressively, and the Pearl Harbor attack was really
(05:53):
Japan's move when they felt that the US had gone
too far in limiting their trade options. We covered the
United State response to the Pearl Harbor attack in our
Do Little Rate episode, so we won't rehash that at
this point. But now we're going to talk about how
Japanese forces went about punishing China for helping Dolittle and
his men by offering landing fields although he and his
(06:14):
men did half the ditch before reaching them, and by
rescuing the scattered men after their mission was over. And
this is where things really do start to get quite ugly.
So before we go to the very dark places that
work can take people, let's have a break for a
word from one of stuff you missed in history classes
sponsors alrighty, this episode is sponsored by long time sponsor
(06:35):
stamps dot Com. You know that feeling when you can
just get things done really quickly with the click of
your mouse, and it makes you feel empowered and awesome
and super convenient. Things are happening and it's a fabulous moment.
I will, in fact, deliberately choose to only do the
thing that I can arrange online rather than the one
where I have to go anywhere or call anyone or
talk to a person. Yeah. I'm big on that too.
(06:57):
And now your mailian shipping can fall into line with
that same thing with stamps dot Com. Stamps dot com
will turn your PC or your Mac into your own
personal post office that never ever closes. It is super
duper convenient. You can buy a print official US postage
for any letter package using your computer in your printer
that you already have. Then just hand that mail or
(07:17):
parcel off to your mail carrier or drop it in
a mailbox and you will never have to go to
the post office again. Right now, you can sign up
for stamps dot com and use our promo code which
is Stuff to get a special offer that includes a
four week trial plus a one dollar bonus offer including
postage and a digital scale. So don't wait. Just go
to stamps dot com and before you do anything else,
(07:37):
click on the microphone at the top of the homepage
and type in stuff that's stamps dot com and enter stuff.
So in June two horrifying march of Japanese troops into
the city of Nunchung started in which they occupied for
a month. And I hope I got the pronunciation correct.
I never got one clear pronunciation on that online. You know,
(08:00):
we look things up, but often they are contrary. So
that's the school well. And there are so many different
dialects spoken in China that a lot of times, even
if you try to stick with one of the primary ones,
people with different accents say it in different ways. Yes, So,
according to accounts written by missionaries in the area at
the time, the Japanese soldiers turned this city into a
(08:21):
living hell for the fifty thousand residents who lived there.
During their occupation, Chinese soldiers corralled women and girls over
the age of ten into a warehouse in the city.
This was an estimated eight hundred people. The captives there
were repeatedly raped. This led to an ongoing problem of
sexually transmitted diseases among the few survivors of that occupation. Additionally,
(08:45):
occupation forces would wander the city, often inebriated, simply shooting
people at whim, capturing, addition, women and girls to take
to that warehouse, and just destroying property. And as their
time in the city ended, the occupation forces systematically destroyed
the infrastructure there. The electrical plant was completely destroyed, the
(09:05):
railroad lines into the city were pulled up, all radios
that they could find were confiscated, the hospital was looted,
and then the city was burned over the course of
three days with a special fire squad that came in
to lead the systematic incineration. This horrific course of events
was unfortunately not unique or an outlier. Over a period
(09:26):
of time lasting several months, multiple Chinese cities suffered the
same treatment. Livestock and humans alike were a shot and
left for dead as troops moved through villages and towns. Roads, bridges,
and air fields of which there was great concern because
of their potential military strategic value, were completely destroyed. Entire
(09:47):
fields of crops were set ablaze, and irrigation systems were dismantled,
crippling the country's food supply, and that's in addition to
them just shooting livestock and letting it rought on the ground,
so the food supply was really really completely gutted at
that point. Uh An estimated eight of the homes in
some targeted areas were destroyed, and medical facilities were looted
(10:10):
and then burned to the ground. If a specific person
or family was discovered to have aided New Little's Men,
they were targeted for the worst treatment. Often the gifts
that the United States soldiers had given to families to
thank them, which were small things like United States coins
or packs of cigarettes, they were the very things that
identified these families to the Japanese troops and sealed their fates.
(10:32):
There are reports largely written by missionaries that were there
at the time and that came in immediately afterwards to
try to help of just unreal torture. People were burned alive.
Often members of their families were forced to set those
fires and then watch as their loved ones burned. They
were also bullet contests, where multiple people would be lined
(10:52):
up together and then someone would fire a gun at
them to see how many bodies a single shot could
pass through. There were just so many different types of
humiliating and really unique torture that were enacted on these people.
And as the summer drew to a close, Japanese troops
were withdrawn from their occupation and then a second phase
(11:12):
of punishing retaliation began. This was Unit seven thirty one,
which is a name that you might have heard of before.
This was a biological warfare unit which was started and
occupied Mancheria. Not long after Japanese forces moved in and
n six construction began on its most well known location,
which was a massive, massive facility in Pinfong. This was
(11:34):
near Harbin, China, and it was branded as the Epidemic
Prevention Department. Under Unit seven thirty one, the Japanese Imperial
Army conducted medical experiments on par with the absolute worst
Joseph Mangelo performed at Auschwitz. More than ten thousand people,
primarily Chinese prisoners of war, but also Russians and allegedly
(11:55):
even captured U S military men were tortured each year
that Unit seven thirty one was operating. Uh, those numbers
are estimates that could be up or down since as
we'll talk about a little bit later. The records are
a little bit unclear um, but experiments were unfortunately not
limited to adults. According to accounts, even infants were used
for testing. These horrifying experiments included leaving people in freezing
(12:18):
temperatures to then experiment on their frostbite, injecting air into
their veins, hanging people upside down to see how long
it would take them to choke, observing deaths that took
place in gas chambers, and just innumerable vivisections. There were
studies that were conducted to determine how humans would respond
when injected with typhus, cholera, and thrax, and other infective agents.
(12:43):
New weapons were tested on subjects to determine how effective
those weapons were. Plague was introduced into groups of people
to see how many died and how how the disease
played out. Many of the biological weapons were also field
tested outside the compound on unsuspecting citizens of the Chinese countryside.
In short, it was a systematized torture center, all on
(13:04):
the banner of scientific discovery, and it operated, as we
mentioned a moment ago, under the guise of preventing disease outbreaks,
and in August of ninety two. As the occupation forces
that had been terrorizing Chinese villages, towns, and cities began
to leave, biological warfare developed at Unit seven thirty one
(13:25):
began in those places. Massive orders for paratyphoid and anthrax
were placed by the Japanese so that the germ warfare
phase could begin. Bottles of water were distributed seated in
flasks throughout the Chinese countryside and the hopes that they
would be found and used, but the water that they
contained was contaminated with typhoid and paratyphoid bacteria. Similarly, prisoners
(13:50):
of war were fed bread that had been contaminated with
typhoid and paratyphoid right before they were released, so that
the disease would spread thoroughly as they returned home. Additional
tainted food was left in places that troops were leaving,
so that the desperate and devastated people left behind, again
already hungry without livestock or crops, would naturally eat them,
(14:10):
thinking them to be harmless abandoned rations. In addition to
the disease that was purposefully spread through tainted food and water,
there was also the problem of the decaying dead everywhere,
which caused additional contamination of the water supply, and with
medical facilities virtually non existent thanks to their destruction that
proceeded this wave of disease, there really wasn't any way
(14:33):
to treat or prevent the diseases spread. Malaria, dysentery, and
cholera had all been problems in some of the targeted
regions of China before Unit seven thirty ones bacterial warfare efforts,
but by late nine two, typhoid and even plague had
been added to the list of health concerns, and treatment,
as we said, was scarce if it could be found
(14:54):
at all. There's also collateral damage for the Japanese Imperial Army,
dealing in germ warp air had also claimed some of
its soldiers who didn't manage to evacuate ahead of the
spreading waves of illness. Numbers of both the Japanese and
Chinese death tolls are all over the place. Estimates of
Japanese losses due to the purposeful spread of disease ranged
(15:14):
from between one thousand, seven hundred and ten thousand, depending
on the source. For Chinese military and civilian casualties. Some
estimates put the death toll of Japan's full retaliation efforts
post Dolittle raid at two hundred and fifty thousand. That number, though,
is incredibly foggy. There's really no hard data due to
the fact that so many people were shot and simply
(15:36):
left where they fell with no account taken of who
had been killed, and those that got sick and died
after the Japanese left weren't processed through medical facilities, so
there's no real paper trail for them either. As for
Unit seven thirty one towards the end of the war,
and we're gonna talk about what happened after it um
The facility itself was incinerated by Japanese forces as they
(15:59):
fled when Shan National Military forces moved into the area
in so it had been there from the late mid
thirties up until forty five, so almost ten years coming up.
We're going to discuss what happened to Unit one as
the war ended and what may seem like an unlikely
beneficiary to all the research that was done there. But
(16:21):
first we'll pause for a word from a sponsor. It
is no secret that I'm a night owl. Yeah, I know,
it sometimes gets emails from me at like three in
the morning. But but you know what is keeping me
company now late at night. It's history. That's right. History.
They've actually got a brand new late night talk show
called Join or Die with Craig Ferguson, and it engages
and covers history in a whole new way. So if
(16:42):
you're wondering what Join or Die with Craig Ferguson is,
I will let you know. It is a total departure
for history, and it is unlike any talk show you've
ever seen. Host Craig Ferguson debates historical figures, important events,
and world changing inventions with a panel of your favorite celebrities,
luminaries and comedians. So like Howard Bragman is on there,
Jordan Carlos, Michael Ian Black, and Dan Soder super funny
(17:05):
people that are super sharp. Then they decide who deserves
to join the ranks of history's most unforgettable and who
gets to die off and be forgotten like the mere
mortals they were. So they're asking big questions like who
committed history's biggest political blunder, or what was history's worst
medical advice? Or who were history's biggest enemies? So you
too can join the debate on History's new late night
(17:26):
talk show Join or Die with Craig Ferguson. That's new
episodes on Thursdays at eleven pm, ten Central on History.
You don't want to miss it. History is back on History.
There's a whole other side of this this issue that
certainly doesn't get talked about very much, and that that's
that the United States is not entirely blameless when considering
(17:46):
China's suffering at the hands of Japan's Imperial Army UH.
While Japan and China had plenty of problems between themselves
long before World War Two, the Doolittle Raid did catalyze
an absolute hell on Earth scenario for a lot of
people in China, and American military authorities knew that this
was a likely outcome, but they purposely withheld information about
(18:08):
this likelihood from Chinese authorities and went ahead with the mission.
We really should also point out that the actual men
who carried out the Doolittle raid were probably not privy
to this intelligence, or they would have almost certainly been
a lot more careful about leaving damning evidence of their
their connection to these towns and families around when they left.
They probably would have been much more secretive if they
(18:30):
had known. Yeah, I don't think those guys had any
clue about the retaliation intelligence. And additionally, the US, through
the work of General Douglas MacArthur, actually granted secret immunity
to many of the doctors and military leaders who worked
at Unit seven thirty one in exchange for exclusive access
to their research and biological weapons. Japan would not be
(18:53):
able to share that information with anyone else as part
of the terms of this agreement. There's only a small
gap between the end of World War Two and the
beginning of the Cold War. Tensions already existed between the
United States and the Soviet Union, and the Unit seven
thirty one research was part of the American portfolio of
plans in preparation for such a conflict. Yeah, sometimes you
(19:15):
will see it pitched in such a way that it
was both the idea that no one should have access
to this information because it is so dangerous, so we're
going to be the custodians of it. But then it
was also intended as part of this, like we will
have biological weapons research if we get into something with
the Soviet Union. So it's a very complex and convoluted thing.
(19:40):
But because of that immunity that was offered to the
leaders of Unit Set one. Many of the men who
had run those horrible experiments there went on to prestigious
careers in science, many of them heading up companies that
produced pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies. Japan's cruel retaliation against
China was reported than the United States. Newspapers. Both the
(20:02):
New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ran stories
about the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children, but
coverage really went quiet after the original first wave of
condemning pieces ran. Yeah, there were a couple of articles
and then not really much else. Um and why the
workings of Unit seven thirty one have gotten such little
(20:22):
attention in comparison to say, the war crimes of the Nazis,
which they are often compared to, you, is an issue
that's debated and discussed at lengths. And for one thing,
there really wasn't much information available for a long time. Then,
is the twentieth century neared its end, people started to
come forward to tell their stories of working there. In
the early two thousands, more and more accounts emerged from
(20:45):
people who had worked in Unity one. For the most part,
these are people who were very young when they were
ordered to engage in many of the really awful experiments
by their superior officers. Yeah, there was one account that
I was reading, and I don't remember which my sources
it was from, but it was a man who was
now elderly, but he was talking about how he he
(21:06):
knew as he was doing this particular thing that it
was horrible, but he didn't know how to possibly like
resist a direct order. So you know, it gets into
a whole arena we could discuss about, like what war
does two people mentally, And that's like a whole psychological
angle to it that is not so much maybe in
(21:28):
our purview, but certainly other house to works podcast could cover. Uh.
And there has been ongoing tension between China and Japan
regarding Unit seven thirty one. So while the Japanese government
has formally apologized on multiple occasions for its actions in
World War Two, there has never been specific acknowledgement of
the work of this biological warfare unit and the Tokyo
(21:51):
War Crimes trial, which began in nine While more than
two dozen Japanese civilians and military officers were tried for
their actions during the or, biological Warfare was not a
major player in the prosecution's case was barely touched on,
much to the dismayed the Soviet Union, which felt it
had provided ample information to build a germ warfare case
(22:12):
around In nineteen forty seven, the Soviet Union still pretty
dismayed that uh that Tokyo War crimes trial had not
really run with the evidence that they had provided, held
its own trials against twelve of Unit seven thirty ones,
captured military officers and scientists, and ultimately found those participants guilty.
(22:34):
But the US played down the entire Soviet trial, kind
of labeling it as propaganda for the communist cause. And
remember we are righting on the cusp of the Cold
War here, So this is as as the escalation is
starting to happen of the US and the Soviet Union
denouncing the moves each of the other makes. The head
of Unit see General Shi wrote Hi lived the rest
(22:57):
of his life in relative peace and then died of
throat answer in nineteen fifty nine. And today there is
a Unit one museum in Harbin, China where the occupation
compound once stood, and the exhibits there recreate the horrific
experiments that took place in the nineteen forties. But in
a very stylized way so that visitors will fully grasp
(23:17):
the extent of the cruel treatment people are received there.
Much of the information used to recreate the scenes in
the museum was garnered from interviews with former guards and
other tertiary employees who came forward with their stories long
after the war was over. It's such a horrific thing.
I can't even h um. Yeah. Uh. There are pictures
(23:42):
of some of the displays of the museum online. There
are also pictures from during the war that are horrifying,
but the displays are laid out in a very interesting
and like I said, it's a very stylized way, so
people are curious. Go online and look for those. Do
you want to bring up the room with some less
death and destruction? Listener mail, you have some pretty interesting listening. Uh.
(24:05):
This listener mail is going back to our episode about
the USS Cyclops and it is from our listener Richard,
and he says, Hi, my name is Richard. I'm a
regular listener to the podcast and a big fan of
YouTube ladies. I recently listened to your show about the
disappearance of the USS Cyclops. I am an ex navigation officer,
having sailed up to the rank of first officer and
a seagoing career lasting eleven years. I have my own
(24:28):
theory for the reasons of cyclops disappearance. I currently work
in the maritime insurance industry, which has exposed me to
the issue of cargo liquefaction. Cargo liquefaction is the process
whereby the moisture content of a bulk cargo similar to
that carried by the USS Cyclops, coalesces to change the
state of the cargo from a solid state to a
liquid state. This change of state is caused by movement
(24:51):
and vibration. When this happens, the newly fluid cargo slashes
around inside the ship's cargo hold, causing it to capsize suddenly,
without war n and with no time to respond. This
problem affects modern ships and most recently is thought to
be the cause of the loss of the bulk Jupiter
with all but one of its hands. The reason I
believe that we can apply this theory to the USS
(25:11):
Cyclops is because she was carrying manganese or manganese or
in modern shipping, is a quote group a cargo, which
means a cargo prone to liquid faction. If the moisture
content of the cargo is too high. Modern ships closely
monitor the moisture content of Group A cargoes before they
load them to ensure they do not load a cargo
which is dangerous. In my basic research into the USS
(25:33):
Cyclops disappearance, I noted she loaded up cargo in Rio
de Janeiro in February. In Rio February is part of
the rainy season. If the cargo of manganese or had
not been protected from rain on the dock side prayer
to loading it, it could have become water logged. So
it seems possible that she may have loaded cargo with
too high and moisture content and suffered from liquefaction, resulting
(25:54):
in her sudden capsize and mysterious loss. I hope this
explanation may be of some use to you, kind regards, Richard.
That's awesome, um uh, and I looked into liquid f
action a little bit after Richard sent us this note.
It certainly is a valid theory. I mean, he clearly
knows what he's talking about, so it's one more possible
explanation for a history mystery. I always love those. Uh Again,
(26:18):
thank you so much, Richard. Those informative and illuminating. Uh.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at house to works dot com.
We're also at Facebook dot com, slash mist in History,
on Twitter at mist in History, at pinterest dot com,
slash mist in History at miss in history dot tumbler
dot com, and we are on Instagram at mist in History.
(26:39):
If you would like to visit us online, you can
do that at misston history dot com, where we have
an archive of every episode Tracy and I have done together,
as well as those of previous hosts. We also have
show notes for the Tracy and Holly era episodes and
the occasional other goodies like Tracy has done a couple
of blog posts on how to find things in our
archives which are super duper informative and helpful for people
(27:01):
that are all having those moments of Hey, I wonder
if you've ever done an episode on X you can
go check that out. You can also check out our
parents site, which is how stuff works dot com, so
we encourage you to do that. Come and visit us
at how stuff works dot com and missed in history
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(27:22):
Is it how stuff works? Dot com
Welcome to Stuff you missed in history class somehow Stuff
Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
Holly frying Can, I'm Tracy Wilson. So we recently talked
about James Doolittle and the US Army Air Corps raid
that he led on Japan in retaliation for Pearl Harbor,
(00:23):
And if you listen to that episode, you may recall
that we spoke only briefly about Doolittle's cruise landing in
China and getting help from both civilian and military people
there in getting rescued and getting home. But while we
didn't talk about in that episode, that one was pretty
lighthearted overall, uh was the price that China paid for
assisting the US in this mission. And while US military
(00:45):
leaders knew that Japan would likely take action against China
for their part in the Doolittle raid, the extent of
that retaliation hasn't really gotten that much attention in terms
of the history of the war, and this particular episode
is going to deal with that, and we have to
put a pretty serious content warning on it. The atrocities
(01:05):
of war are often discussed, but the actual details are
often really incredibly difficult to contend with I mean even here,
we're not going to include every thing, because there are
a lot of horrible stories that got read in the research,
but a lot of times those kinds of things overall
get kind of left out or glossed over, and some many,
in fact, of the things that happened in China after
(01:27):
the Doolittle Raid we're challenging for me, I know, just
in the research process. But this is a really important
story to tell. So if you think some of this
we're going to get into some pretty rough experiments and torture,
We're not going to linger on them, but we will
describe some of them. So if you think that might
be too intense for you or for any younger history
buffs that you listen with, this is your official heads up.
(01:49):
This is basically a story about Japan punishing China, and
the Japanese plans have punished China began almost immediately after
the Doolittle Raid. There were already Japanese occupation forces many
Chinese locations, including commercial commercial centers, key coastal positions, and Manchuria,
and those occupation forces were in place because before World
War Two started, Japan and China were locked in their
(02:12):
own conflict, the Second Sina Japanese War. So we're gonna
talk a little bit about that conflict, although this is
admittedly an abbreviated version. Japan had really been eyeing China's
national resources for quite some time, and in nineteen thirty
one is China's internal strife between the nationalists and Mao
Zutungue leg communists uh Manchuria was invaded and occupied by
(02:34):
Japanese forces. This was by no means a small region
of China we're talking about. It's about the size of
Germany and France combined in the League of Nations got
involved after China requested their help. And while the League
condemned the actions of the Japanese, there really wasn't any
retribution for the aggression and for them just moving in.
(02:55):
But Japan did leave the League of Nations over the
whole report Japan contain and you to spread into territory
in China, working for a Manchuria as a foothold, until
just about all of northern China was occupied by Japan.
Because the Nationalists of their Shangkai check we're focused on
trying to subdue this communist uprising that was going on.
(03:15):
They weren't putting any They weren't really putting up any
resistance against Japanese troops, which is why Japan was able
to occupy so much of China during this time. But
eventually China's military did make a bigger effort to push
back against Japan's occupation, and the Chinese nationalists and Mao's
Communist Party actually joined forces against their foe in the
(03:37):
Sino Japanese War beginning in nine seven. I think we
might have touched on this, just really really briefly in
that four part series we did a while back about
China under Chairman Mouth, So if you're looking for that
part of that story, there's stuff on it in the archive. Um.
The Marco Polo Bridge incident officially catalyzed the war in
(03:59):
July nineteen thirty seven. On the evening of July seven,
shots were fired between Chinese soldiers and Japanese troops stationed
at the bridge while the latter were doing training exercises.
While the full details of this incident in terms of
what happened up to that point remained really unclear, there
was a Japanese soldier who was unaccounted for. When Japanese
(04:20):
soldiers tried to enter a small walled town outside of
Beijing to search for their missing man. They were met
with resistance. The situation soon escalated and gunfire erupted from
both sides. Negotiations failed to get anywhere, and Japanese infantry
moved in in greater numbers, eventually leading to his full
scale invasion. The Rape of Nine King, in which an
(04:42):
estimated one hundred thousand to three hundred thousand people depending
on the source you look at, were killed by the
Japanese UH, thousands of which were women who were raped
prior to being killed, took place in December of seven,
early on in the Second Sino Japanese War. The brutality
of the Rape of Nine King, including practices such as
dismembering victims before killing them, burning people alive, brutally drowning
(05:08):
victims UH, set the tone for the entire Sino Japanese War,
and the conflict dragged on for years after that, well
into World War Two. The situation between China and Japan
in nineteen forty, which was two years before the Doolittle Raid,
as often characterized as a stalemate. Both sides were struggling
and depleted, so while Japan couldn't make a true victory happened.
(05:31):
China also couldn't manage to push the occupying Japanese forces
out of the country. Japan's brutality throughout the conflict and
its walk out on the League of Nations hadn't really
helped the country's global reputation. In an effort to cripple
Japanese resources and assist China, economic sanctions against Japan had
ramped up progressively, and the Pearl Harbor attack was really
(05:53):
Japan's move when they felt that the US had gone
too far in limiting their trade options. We covered the
United State response to the Pearl Harbor attack in our
Do Little Rate episode, so we won't rehash that at
this point. But now we're going to talk about how
Japanese forces went about punishing China for helping Dolittle and
his men by offering landing fields although he and his
(06:14):
men did half the ditch before reaching them, and by
rescuing the scattered men after their mission was over. And
this is where things really do start to get quite ugly.
So before we go to the very dark places that
work can take people, let's have a break for a
word from one of stuff you missed in history classes
sponsors alrighty, this episode is sponsored by long time sponsor
(06:35):
stamps dot Com. You know that feeling when you can
just get things done really quickly with the click of
your mouse, and it makes you feel empowered and awesome
and super convenient. Things are happening and it's a fabulous moment.
I will, in fact, deliberately choose to only do the
thing that I can arrange online rather than the one
where I have to go anywhere or call anyone or
talk to a person. Yeah. I'm big on that too.
(06:57):
And now your mailian shipping can fall into line with
that same thing with stamps dot Com. Stamps dot com
will turn your PC or your Mac into your own
personal post office that never ever closes. It is super
duper convenient. You can buy a print official US postage
for any letter package using your computer in your printer
that you already have. Then just hand that mail or
(07:17):
parcel off to your mail carrier or drop it in
a mailbox and you will never have to go to
the post office again. Right now, you can sign up
for stamps dot com and use our promo code which
is Stuff to get a special offer that includes a
four week trial plus a one dollar bonus offer including
postage and a digital scale. So don't wait. Just go
to stamps dot com and before you do anything else,
(07:37):
click on the microphone at the top of the homepage
and type in stuff that's stamps dot com and enter stuff.
So in June two horrifying march of Japanese troops into
the city of Nunchung started in which they occupied for
a month. And I hope I got the pronunciation correct.
I never got one clear pronunciation on that online. You know,
(08:00):
we look things up, but often they are contrary. So
that's the school well. And there are so many different
dialects spoken in China that a lot of times, even
if you try to stick with one of the primary ones,
people with different accents say it in different ways. Yes, So,
according to accounts written by missionaries in the area at
the time, the Japanese soldiers turned this city into a
(08:21):
living hell for the fifty thousand residents who lived there.
During their occupation, Chinese soldiers corralled women and girls over
the age of ten into a warehouse in the city.
This was an estimated eight hundred people. The captives there
were repeatedly raped. This led to an ongoing problem of
sexually transmitted diseases among the few survivors of that occupation. Additionally,
(08:45):
occupation forces would wander the city, often inebriated, simply shooting
people at whim, capturing, addition, women and girls to take
to that warehouse, and just destroying property. And as their
time in the city ended, the occupation forces systematically destroyed
the infrastructure there. The electrical plant was completely destroyed, the
(09:05):
railroad lines into the city were pulled up, all radios
that they could find were confiscated, the hospital was looted,
and then the city was burned over the course of
three days with a special fire squad that came in
to lead the systematic incineration. This horrific course of events
was unfortunately not unique or an outlier. Over a period
(09:26):
of time lasting several months, multiple Chinese cities suffered the
same treatment. Livestock and humans alike were a shot and
left for dead as troops moved through villages and towns. Roads, bridges,
and air fields of which there was great concern because
of their potential military strategic value, were completely destroyed. Entire
(09:47):
fields of crops were set ablaze, and irrigation systems were dismantled,
crippling the country's food supply, and that's in addition to
them just shooting livestock and letting it rought on the ground,
so the food supply was really really completely gutted at
that point. Uh An estimated eight of the homes in
some targeted areas were destroyed, and medical facilities were looted
(10:10):
and then burned to the ground. If a specific person
or family was discovered to have aided New Little's Men,
they were targeted for the worst treatment. Often the gifts
that the United States soldiers had given to families to
thank them, which were small things like United States coins
or packs of cigarettes, they were the very things that
identified these families to the Japanese troops and sealed their fates.
(10:32):
There are reports largely written by missionaries that were there
at the time and that came in immediately afterwards to
try to help of just unreal torture. People were burned alive.
Often members of their families were forced to set those
fires and then watch as their loved ones burned. They
were also bullet contests, where multiple people would be lined
(10:52):
up together and then someone would fire a gun at
them to see how many bodies a single shot could
pass through. There were just so many different types of
humiliating and really unique torture that were enacted on these people.
And as the summer drew to a close, Japanese troops
were withdrawn from their occupation and then a second phase
(11:12):
of punishing retaliation began. This was Unit seven thirty one,
which is a name that you might have heard of before.
This was a biological warfare unit which was started and
occupied Mancheria. Not long after Japanese forces moved in and
n six construction began on its most well known location,
which was a massive, massive facility in Pinfong. This was
(11:34):
near Harbin, China, and it was branded as the Epidemic
Prevention Department. Under Unit seven thirty one, the Japanese Imperial
Army conducted medical experiments on par with the absolute worst
Joseph Mangelo performed at Auschwitz. More than ten thousand people,
primarily Chinese prisoners of war, but also Russians and allegedly
(11:55):
even captured U S military men were tortured each year
that Unit seven thirty one was operating. Uh, those numbers
are estimates that could be up or down since as
we'll talk about a little bit later. The records are
a little bit unclear um, but experiments were unfortunately not
limited to adults. According to accounts, even infants were used
for testing. These horrifying experiments included leaving people in freezing
(12:18):
temperatures to then experiment on their frostbite, injecting air into
their veins, hanging people upside down to see how long
it would take them to choke, observing deaths that took
place in gas chambers, and just innumerable vivisections. There were
studies that were conducted to determine how humans would respond
when injected with typhus, cholera, and thrax, and other infective agents.
(12:43):
New weapons were tested on subjects to determine how effective
those weapons were. Plague was introduced into groups of people
to see how many died and how how the disease
played out. Many of the biological weapons were also field
tested outside the compound on unsuspecting citizens of the Chinese countryside.
In short, it was a systematized torture center, all on
(13:04):
the banner of scientific discovery, and it operated, as we
mentioned a moment ago, under the guise of preventing disease outbreaks,
and in August of ninety two. As the occupation forces
that had been terrorizing Chinese villages, towns, and cities began
to leave, biological warfare developed at Unit seven thirty one
(13:25):
began in those places. Massive orders for paratyphoid and anthrax
were placed by the Japanese so that the germ warfare
phase could begin. Bottles of water were distributed seated in
flasks throughout the Chinese countryside and the hopes that they
would be found and used, but the water that they
contained was contaminated with typhoid and paratyphoid bacteria. Similarly, prisoners
(13:50):
of war were fed bread that had been contaminated with
typhoid and paratyphoid right before they were released, so that
the disease would spread thoroughly as they returned home. Additional
tainted food was left in places that troops were leaving,
so that the desperate and devastated people left behind, again
already hungry without livestock or crops, would naturally eat them,
(14:10):
thinking them to be harmless abandoned rations. In addition to
the disease that was purposefully spread through tainted food and water,
there was also the problem of the decaying dead everywhere,
which caused additional contamination of the water supply, and with
medical facilities virtually non existent thanks to their destruction that
proceeded this wave of disease, there really wasn't any way
(14:33):
to treat or prevent the diseases spread. Malaria, dysentery, and
cholera had all been problems in some of the targeted
regions of China before Unit seven thirty ones bacterial warfare efforts,
but by late nine two, typhoid and even plague had
been added to the list of health concerns, and treatment,
as we said, was scarce if it could be found
(14:54):
at all. There's also collateral damage for the Japanese Imperial Army,
dealing in germ warp air had also claimed some of
its soldiers who didn't manage to evacuate ahead of the
spreading waves of illness. Numbers of both the Japanese and
Chinese death tolls are all over the place. Estimates of
Japanese losses due to the purposeful spread of disease ranged
(15:14):
from between one thousand, seven hundred and ten thousand, depending
on the source. For Chinese military and civilian casualties. Some
estimates put the death toll of Japan's full retaliation efforts
post Dolittle raid at two hundred and fifty thousand. That number, though,
is incredibly foggy. There's really no hard data due to
the fact that so many people were shot and simply
(15:36):
left where they fell with no account taken of who
had been killed, and those that got sick and died
after the Japanese left weren't processed through medical facilities, so
there's no real paper trail for them either. As for
Unit seven thirty one towards the end of the war,
and we're gonna talk about what happened after it um
The facility itself was incinerated by Japanese forces as they
(15:59):
fled when Shan National Military forces moved into the area
in so it had been there from the late mid
thirties up until forty five, so almost ten years coming up.
We're going to discuss what happened to Unit one as
the war ended and what may seem like an unlikely
beneficiary to all the research that was done there. But
(16:21):
first we'll pause for a word from a sponsor. It
is no secret that I'm a night owl. Yeah, I know,
it sometimes gets emails from me at like three in
the morning. But but you know what is keeping me
company now late at night. It's history. That's right. History.
They've actually got a brand new late night talk show
called Join or Die with Craig Ferguson, and it engages
and covers history in a whole new way. So if
(16:42):
you're wondering what Join or Die with Craig Ferguson is,
I will let you know. It is a total departure
for history, and it is unlike any talk show you've
ever seen. Host Craig Ferguson debates historical figures, important events,
and world changing inventions with a panel of your favorite celebrities,
luminaries and comedians. So like Howard Bragman is on there,
Jordan Carlos, Michael Ian Black, and Dan Soder super funny
(17:05):
people that are super sharp. Then they decide who deserves
to join the ranks of history's most unforgettable and who
gets to die off and be forgotten like the mere
mortals they were. So they're asking big questions like who
committed history's biggest political blunder, or what was history's worst
medical advice? Or who were history's biggest enemies? So you
too can join the debate on History's new late night
(17:26):
talk show Join or Die with Craig Ferguson. That's new
episodes on Thursdays at eleven pm, ten Central on History.
You don't want to miss it. History is back on History.
There's a whole other side of this this issue that
certainly doesn't get talked about very much, and that that's
that the United States is not entirely blameless when considering
(17:46):
China's suffering at the hands of Japan's Imperial Army UH.
While Japan and China had plenty of problems between themselves
long before World War Two, the Doolittle Raid did catalyze
an absolute hell on Earth scenario for a lot of
people in China, and American military authorities knew that this
was a likely outcome, but they purposely withheld information about
(18:08):
this likelihood from Chinese authorities and went ahead with the mission.
We really should also point out that the actual men
who carried out the Doolittle raid were probably not privy
to this intelligence, or they would have almost certainly been
a lot more careful about leaving damning evidence of their
their connection to these towns and families around when they left.
They probably would have been much more secretive if they
(18:30):
had known. Yeah, I don't think those guys had any
clue about the retaliation intelligence. And additionally, the US, through
the work of General Douglas MacArthur, actually granted secret immunity
to many of the doctors and military leaders who worked
at Unit seven thirty one in exchange for exclusive access
to their research and biological weapons. Japan would not be
(18:53):
able to share that information with anyone else as part
of the terms of this agreement. There's only a small
gap between the end of World War Two and the
beginning of the Cold War. Tensions already existed between the
United States and the Soviet Union, and the Unit seven
thirty one research was part of the American portfolio of
plans in preparation for such a conflict. Yeah, sometimes you
(19:15):
will see it pitched in such a way that it
was both the idea that no one should have access
to this information because it is so dangerous, so we're
going to be the custodians of it. But then it
was also intended as part of this, like we will
have biological weapons research if we get into something with
the Soviet Union. So it's a very complex and convoluted thing.
(19:40):
But because of that immunity that was offered to the
leaders of Unit Set one. Many of the men who
had run those horrible experiments there went on to prestigious
careers in science, many of them heading up companies that
produced pharmaceuticals and other medical supplies. Japan's cruel retaliation against
China was reported than the United States. Newspapers. Both the
(20:02):
New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ran stories
about the indiscriminate killing of men, women, and children, but
coverage really went quiet after the original first wave of
condemning pieces ran. Yeah, there were a couple of articles
and then not really much else. Um and why the
workings of Unit seven thirty one have gotten such little
(20:22):
attention in comparison to say, the war crimes of the Nazis,
which they are often compared to, you, is an issue
that's debated and discussed at lengths. And for one thing,
there really wasn't much information available for a long time. Then,
is the twentieth century neared its end, people started to
come forward to tell their stories of working there. In
the early two thousands, more and more accounts emerged from
(20:45):
people who had worked in Unity one. For the most part,
these are people who were very young when they were
ordered to engage in many of the really awful experiments
by their superior officers. Yeah, there was one account that
I was reading, and I don't remember which my sources
it was from, but it was a man who was
now elderly, but he was talking about how he he
(21:06):
knew as he was doing this particular thing that it
was horrible, but he didn't know how to possibly like
resist a direct order. So you know, it gets into
a whole arena we could discuss about, like what war
does two people mentally, And that's like a whole psychological
angle to it that is not so much maybe in
(21:28):
our purview, but certainly other house to works podcast could cover. Uh.
And there has been ongoing tension between China and Japan
regarding Unit seven thirty one. So while the Japanese government
has formally apologized on multiple occasions for its actions in
World War Two, there has never been specific acknowledgement of
the work of this biological warfare unit and the Tokyo
(21:51):
War Crimes trial, which began in nine While more than
two dozen Japanese civilians and military officers were tried for
their actions during the or, biological Warfare was not a
major player in the prosecution's case was barely touched on,
much to the dismayed the Soviet Union, which felt it
had provided ample information to build a germ warfare case
(22:12):
around In nineteen forty seven, the Soviet Union still pretty
dismayed that uh that Tokyo War crimes trial had not
really run with the evidence that they had provided, held
its own trials against twelve of Unit seven thirty ones,
captured military officers and scientists, and ultimately found those participants guilty.
(22:34):
But the US played down the entire Soviet trial, kind
of labeling it as propaganda for the communist cause. And
remember we are righting on the cusp of the Cold
War here, So this is as as the escalation is
starting to happen of the US and the Soviet Union
denouncing the moves each of the other makes. The head
of Unit see General Shi wrote Hi lived the rest
(22:57):
of his life in relative peace and then died of
throat answer in nineteen fifty nine. And today there is
a Unit one museum in Harbin, China where the occupation
compound once stood, and the exhibits there recreate the horrific
experiments that took place in the nineteen forties. But in
a very stylized way so that visitors will fully grasp
(23:17):
the extent of the cruel treatment people are received there.
Much of the information used to recreate the scenes in
the museum was garnered from interviews with former guards and
other tertiary employees who came forward with their stories long
after the war was over. It's such a horrific thing.
I can't even h um. Yeah. Uh. There are pictures
(23:42):
of some of the displays of the museum online. There
are also pictures from during the war that are horrifying,
but the displays are laid out in a very interesting
and like I said, it's a very stylized way, so
people are curious. Go online and look for those. Do
you want to bring up the room with some less
death and destruction? Listener mail, you have some pretty interesting listening. Uh.
(24:05):
This listener mail is going back to our episode about
the USS Cyclops and it is from our listener Richard,
and he says, Hi, my name is Richard. I'm a
regular listener to the podcast and a big fan of
YouTube ladies. I recently listened to your show about the
disappearance of the USS Cyclops. I am an ex navigation officer,
having sailed up to the rank of first officer and
a seagoing career lasting eleven years. I have my own
(24:28):
theory for the reasons of cyclops disappearance. I currently work
in the maritime insurance industry, which has exposed me to
the issue of cargo liquefaction. Cargo liquefaction is the process
whereby the moisture content of a bulk cargo similar to
that carried by the USS Cyclops, coalesces to change the
state of the cargo from a solid state to a
liquid state. This change of state is caused by movement
(24:51):
and vibration. When this happens, the newly fluid cargo slashes
around inside the ship's cargo hold, causing it to capsize suddenly,
without war n and with no time to respond. This
problem affects modern ships and most recently is thought to
be the cause of the loss of the bulk Jupiter
with all but one of its hands. The reason I
believe that we can apply this theory to the USS
(25:11):
Cyclops is because she was carrying manganese or manganese or
in modern shipping, is a quote group a cargo, which
means a cargo prone to liquid faction. If the moisture
content of the cargo is too high. Modern ships closely
monitor the moisture content of Group A cargoes before they
load them to ensure they do not load a cargo
which is dangerous. In my basic research into the USS
(25:33):
Cyclops disappearance, I noted she loaded up cargo in Rio
de Janeiro in February. In Rio February is part of
the rainy season. If the cargo of manganese or had
not been protected from rain on the dock side prayer
to loading it, it could have become water logged. So
it seems possible that she may have loaded cargo with
too high and moisture content and suffered from liquefaction, resulting
(25:54):
in her sudden capsize and mysterious loss. I hope this
explanation may be of some use to you, kind regards, Richard.
That's awesome, um uh, and I looked into liquid f
action a little bit after Richard sent us this note.
It certainly is a valid theory. I mean, he clearly
knows what he's talking about, so it's one more possible
explanation for a history mystery. I always love those. Uh Again,
(26:18):
thank you so much, Richard. Those informative and illuminating. Uh.
If you would like to write to us, you can
do so at History Podcast at house to works dot com.
We're also at Facebook dot com, slash mist in History,
on Twitter at mist in History, at pinterest dot com,
slash mist in History at miss in history dot tumbler
dot com, and we are on Instagram at mist in History.
(26:39):
If you would like to visit us online, you can
do that at misston history dot com, where we have
an archive of every episode Tracy and I have done together,
as well as those of previous hosts. We also have
show notes for the Tracy and Holly era episodes and
the occasional other goodies like Tracy has done a couple
of blog posts on how to find things in our
archives which are super duper informative and helpful for people
(27:01):
that are all having those moments of Hey, I wonder
if you've ever done an episode on X you can
go check that out. You can also check out our
parents site, which is how stuff works dot com, so
we encourage you to do that. Come and visit us
at how stuff works dot com and missed in history
dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics.
(27:22):
Is it how stuff works? Dot com
Stuff You Missed in History Class News
Hosts And Creators
Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.