Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory

During the Second Sino-Japanese War the Japanese did experiments on human-beings in a placed called Unit 731 which was located in Pingfang, Harbin which was located in Manchuria. Here is a story of a doctor who participated in experiments in Unit 731.

November 23rd, 1944
Today was going to be my first experiment. I was going to do a vivisection on a subject who suffered from shrapnel wounds. This was going to be my first vivisection. I had only done dissections on already dead subjects. I put on my gloves, mask and coat. They were going to call me into the operating room soon. "Katsuta-kun, it's time to go in." Another doctor said.



"Okay," I said. I headed to the operation room. It smelled of bleached operating tools, sounds of the subject moaning and groaning filled the room and blood covered the metal operating table. It had long black hair and a female figure and it was in the nude. As I came in it glared at me with its black eyes.

"You sons of bitches, you don't see us as human. We're just logs in your eyes! I've lost all of my family because of you! I have nothing else to lose," It said. Her tone of voice was full of loathing. I tried to brushed off what she said and went next to the doctor monitoring its heart beat. I grabbed a scalpel out of a box full of them. I pressed it against the subject's chest.

"Now!" The other doctor said to me. I had begun to cut the subject open. I tried to block out the screams as best as I could. I was able to get it open and expose its inside. Some shrapnel pieces were stuck in the liver and kidney and it also had a limb or two blown off from the blast of the bomb. It was bleeding profusely. Scientists and other doctors took notes on the reaction of the subject.

After we had taken the heart out, the subject finally died. I sighed in relief; it was finally over. We took off our gloves and masks. A doctor and I sat in a break room with a couple of beers. It was evening now. The experiment had taken most of the day.

"Katsuta, how was it?" He asked.

"How was what?" I asked.

"Your first vivisection, usually doctors sweat profusely and their hands tremble but you did it without hesitation." He took a drink of the beer.

"I don't know Ogata. I just didn't think of it as human," I explained. I hadn't touched my beer.

He laughed, "I guess all those dissections got you ready for the vivisection." I went back to the dorms of Unit 731 for the doctors. I was tired from the operation. I got into bed and I looked up at the ceiling. It well her words couldn't get out of my head.

"''I have nothing else to lose..." ''

For some reason those words bothered me the most. A tear came down my cheek and I closed my eyes. I couldn't get the image of her eyes out of my head.

That night I was unable to sleep.