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Exhibits in the Unit 731 museum in Ping Fan. On the left, a device to grow bacteria, developed by Ishii Shiro. Over 1,000 of these boxes were used in Ping Fan for the large scale production of biowarfare agents.
On the right, a ceramic bomb developed by Unit 731 to disseminate bacteria.
Photo: Matthias Ziegler
6. Development of biological weapons at Ping Fan
Japan was the first country to start a systematic, large-scale approach to develop biological weapons. It investigated a variety of basic questions that are essential for any such program: Which pathogens are best suited as biowarfare agents? How can they be produced in large quantities? How can they be stored and transported? What is the most efficient way to disseminate the germs? All of these questions were pursued by Unit 731, with varying degrees of success.
An endless list of pathogens was tested for their suitability as warfare agents: the causative agents of plague, cholera, typhus, paratyphus, anthrax, gangrene, tetanus, gas gangrene and many others.
For the large scale production of bacteria, Unit 731 developed specific culture boxes. More than 1,000 of these boxes were inoculated and harvested daily, enabling the production of large quantities of plague, typhus and anthrax bacteria.
Efficient delivery devices proved to be the most difficult part of the problem. Unit 731 first experimented with adapting conventional and chemical munitions, but human experiments showed that they were not very efficient. A special testing ground was built near Anda, 140 km North of Harbin, where prisoners were tied to stakes in the ground and exposed to biological weapons. Porcelain bombs were determined to be most efficient because they required only minute amounts of explosives, which prevented excessive damage to the bacteria payload when the device was detonated.
Another invention at Ping Fan was the use of insects as vectors for biological weapons. Fleas were bred by the million on plague-infected rats. Fleas proved to be more resistant against environmental or bomb damage and were able (by biting) to deliver the bacteria directly into the target. Plague-infected fleas were used in the first large-scale biowarfare attack in China, in 1940 on the city of Quzhou.
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