page_title: Kaimingjie germ weapon attack
section_title: Research of the weapon
hierarchical_section_title: Kaimingjie germ weapon attack / Research of the weapon
caption_attribution_description: Shiro Ishii
context_page_description: The Kaimingjie germ weapon attack was a Japanese biological warfare bacterial germ strike against Kaimingjie, an area of the port of Ningbo in the Chinese province of Zhejiang in October 1940, during the Second Sino-Japanese War.
  These attacks were a joint Unit 731 and Unit 1644 endeavour. Bubonic plague was the area of greatest interest to the doctors of the units mentioned above. Six different plague attacks were conducted in China during the war, between the start of aggression and the end of the war.
  Using airdropped wheat, corn, scraps of cotton cloth and sand infested with plague infected fleas, an outbreak was started that resulted in a hundred deaths, infections and mild to severe bodily mutilations. The area was evacuated and a 14-foot wall was built around it to enforce a quarantine. The area was eventually burnt to the ground to eradicate the disease.
  A later attack in 1942 on the same area by the two units led to the development of their final delivery system: airdropped ceramic bombs. Some work was conducted during the war with the use of liquid forms of the pathogen agents but the results were unsatisfactory for the researchers.
context_section_description: Japan had signed the Geneva convention, which prohibited biological and chemical warfare, however, it had not ratified the treaty and was thus not bound to the conditions of the treaty and therefore could develop a chemical and biological weapons program.
  Japan developed a chemical and biological weapons program, under Japan's top-secret weapons program, founded and led by General Shirō Ishii.
  Ishii played a large role in pushing for the funding of the biological weapons program from the high command, general Ishii was said to have been “eccentric…flamboyant and arrogant man”. Ishii was accepted into the medical department of Kyoto Imperial university, there he illustrated his fast and quick mind, much advanced for his age. Throughout university Japan instilled a solid sense of nationalism and patriotic duty unto their students. General Shirō Ishii has been described as an "ardent ultra-nationalist".
  Ishii understood science and medicine as an avenue to further Japan's nationalistic goals. Ishii joined the army where he was appointed as lieutenant. Along his journey Ishii created a network of ties with people of high standing in university and the military, these connections would later facilitate the founding of the biological weapons program, and subsequent research. His argument for the use of chemical weapons was that biological warfare would be a cheaper alternative to traditional forms of weaponry.
  The main units of this program were units 731 and 1644, both units operated under the guise of the epidemic prevention and water purification department. This was a department of the Imperial Japanese army, and it had the public mission of preventing the spread of disease through monitoring Japan's water supply.
  Much of the research and experimentation took place in China and Manchukuo, although some experimentation also occurred at Imperial Navy hospitals and hospitals where wounded soldiers were being treated for their injuries. experimentation occurred at these hospitals on islands across the Pacific wherein various prisoners of war from different countries were used as subjects for the experiments, including Soviet and Chinese prisoners.
caption: Shiro-ishii
exif: {}