Unit 8604
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Unit 8604 or Nami Unit was a secret military medical unit of the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) that researched biological warfare and other topics through human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945) and World War II era. It was formed in Guangzhou, Guangdong, near Hong Kong and headquartered at Zhongshan Medical University (Hal Gold, Unit 731 Testimony, 2003, p.50). Unit 8604 is considered a sub-unit of Unit 731.
The unit was commanded by Major General Sato Shunji, a physician.[1] It was staffed by a total of 800 personnel: 100 commissioned officers (many with medical or scientific backgrounds), 200 medical and scientific researchers, and 500 soldiers and noncommissioned officers.[2]
This facility conducted food and water deprivation experiments as well as water-borne typhus human experimentation. In addition, this facility served as the main rat-farm for the medical units to provide them with plague vectors for their experiments.
On 4 November 1994, the Japan Times reported the testimony of Shigeru Maruyama, a former member of the unit who said that one experiment involved starving prisoners to death and talked of seeing victims being operated on almost every day.
[edit] See also
| Imperial Japanese Army special research units |
|---|
| Unit 100 (Shenyang) | Unit 516 (Qiqihar) | Unit 543 (Hailar) | Unit 731 (Pingfang) / Unit 200 (Manchuria) / Unit 8604 or Nami Unit (Guangzhou) | Unit 773 (Songo) | Unit Ei 1644 (Nanjing) | Unit 1855 (Nanjing) | Unit 2646 or Unit 80 (Hailar) | Unit 9420 or Oka Unit (Singapore) |
[edit] References
- ^ Yamada (山田乙三), Otozō, ed. (1950), Materials on the Trial of Former Servicemen of the Japanese Army Charged with Manufacturing and Employing Bacteriological Weapons / Documents relatifs au procès des anciens Militaires de l'Armée Japonaise accusés d'avoir préparé et employé l'Arme Bactériologique / 細菌戦用兵器ノ準備及ビ使用ノ廉デ起訴サレタ元日本軍軍人ノ事件ニ関スル公判書類 / 前日本陸軍軍人因準備和使用細菌武器被控案審判材料, Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, p. 524, OCLC 24964936
- ^ Beam, Thomas E.; Sparacino, Linette R., eds. (2003), Military Medical Ethics, 2, Falls Church, Virginia: United States Army Office of the Surgeon General, p. 481, ISBN 9781428910669, OCLC 52553758, http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS57893
- Barenblatt, Daniel (2005). A Plague Upon Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan's Biological Warfare Program. HarperCollins. p. 165. ISBN 0060933879. http://books.google.com/books?id=ABQ2GQ4--NYC&pg=PA165&lpg=PA165&dq=unit+8604+nami+-wikipedia&source=web&ots=yyD6jGmndn&sig=z8FZnlBcDn2xr0dSYQB0D8x1r_Q.
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