Official records on Japanese Imperial Army unit unearthed | NHK … – NHK WORLD

A Japanese researcher has discovered official records on a section of the now-defunct Japanese Imperial Army known as Unit 731, which is said to have engaged in research on germ warfare during World War Two.

Matsuno Seiya, a researcher at Meiji Gakuin University's International Peace Research Institute, said he found the records in a report numbering more than 100 pages kept at the National Archives of Japan.

The report was created in September 1940 by the Kwantung Army stationed in what was then called Manchuria.

The records on the unit described how its official name was changed at the time, as well as a plan to expand the group by allocating more personnel.

Appended to the report was a list of the names and ranks of the unit's members. Ishii Shiro, the head of the group at that time, and medical scholars are among the 97 members on the list.

Details of the unit's activities are not known, since records on the group were ordered to be destroyed by the Imperial Army.

Matsuno said the discovery is significant, because they are the first records found regarding the unit's composition, enabling him to figure out who was in the group in its early days.

Matsuno said the member list includes previously unknown names, and that it will help researchers get to the bottom of what the unit did during the war.

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