US prisoners of war had parts of their brains and livers removed during WWII, new Japanese exhibit shows

A Japanese university museum will break taboo with an exhibition on the infamous live vivisections of American POWs during the Second World War.

Kyushu University’s medical school will for the first time publicly acknowledge that captured US troops had parts of their brains and livers removed in a series of macabre experiments carried out by the university’s medical personal during WWII.

The dark chapter, explained by two items out of 63 in the exhibit, follows nine American air force personnel, who bailed out of their damaged B-29 aircraft over the Kumamoto and Oita prefectures on 5 May, 1945, before their were captured by Japanese troops.

Captain Marvin Watkins was taken to Tokyo for interrogation, while his eight surviving men were transferred to a military doctor and transported to Kyoto Imperial University’s College of Medicine – the predecessor of the current institution.

In 1948, testimony against 30 doctors and university staff claimed in an Allied War Crimes tribunal in Yokohama that the men were subject to a range of ‘treatments’.

These included intravenous injections of seawater, in order to determine whether salt water could be used as a substitute for saline injections, as well as live vivisections.

Some of the men had parts of their liver removed to determine if they could survive, and others had sections of the brains taken out to see if this would be a cure for epilepsy.

None of the men survived but their remains were preserved in formaldehyde until the end of the war, when those involved destroyed the evidence, the Daily Telegraph reported.

The tribunal later found 23 men guilty. One individual committed suicide in prison during the trial, but five were sentenced to death, four to life prison sentences and the rest received shorter sentences.

General Douglas MacArthur, the military governor of Japan, later commuted all the sentences and reduced the prison sentences in 1950. By the end of the decade all involved in the case had been released.

The tribunal never found the university guilty of systematically contributing to the deaths of the men – despite the 23 convictions – but the institution has avoided addressing the subject publicly.

A professor’s meeting in March elected to shed a small light on this role, adding the two items – including a panel explaining the actions of the staff – to the exhibition.

Other instances of human vivisections are known to have been conducted by Japanese troops during the same period.

Infamous Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army, carried out thousands of vivisections in northern China. Many of those responsible have never been held accountable for their actions.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-prisoners-of-war-had-parts-of-their-brains-and-livers-removed-during-wwii-new-japanese-exhibit-shows-10159183.html

Good grief! I know a lot of what they did because my uncle was a Japanese POW and to the day he died he wouldn't buy anything made in Japan.

The Pacific War was as much a racial war, as anything.  (We are in one now with the Middle East, if you are wondering what it feels like.)  Racial wars are distinguished by being able to discount the suffering of the adversary.  After all, we boil lobsters, don't we?  Herodotus mentions that the Greeks' attitude against the Persians was that they were not even human.

I have the good fortune of being in possession of many original letters to and from home of many soldiers and sailors in WWII.  They reflect the worst that racism offers...a young daughter--a flower of innocence--writing to her father urging him to disembowel "those Japs".

By being able to 'unliken' a people to yourself, you are able to perform horribly outrageous acts upon them.  Although I believe the first and only use of a nuclear device was rational, it shows the lengths a people can go to bring unspeakable acts to the other.  Remember, race wars don't don't necessarily enhance the viciousness, as much as they can discount the suffering (big difference).  Hitler, for his part, tried to do the same to the Jews.  Certainly, ISIL's beheadings are a contemporary example.