American cover-up of Japanese war crimes

The occupying US government undertook the selective cover-up of some Japanese war crimes after the End of World War II in Asia, granting political immunity to military personnel who had engaged in human experimentation and other crimes against humanity, predominantly in mainland China.[1][2] The pardon of Japanese war criminals, among whom were Unit 731's commanding officers General Shiro Ishii and General Masaji Kitano, was overseen by General of the Army Douglas MacArthur in September 1945. While a series of war tribunals and trials was organized, many of the high-ranking officials and doctors who devised and respectively performed the experiments were pardoned and never brought to justice due to the US government both classifying incriminating evidence, as well as blocking the prosecution access to key witnesses.[3] As many as 12,000 people, most of them Chinese, died in Unit 731 alone and many more died in other facilities, such as Unit 100 and in field experiments throughout Manchuria.[4][5]

  1. ^ Brandi Altheide. "Biohazard: Unit 731 and the American Cover-Up" (PDF). Umflint.edu. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-07-31. Retrieved 2016-05-19.
  2. ^ Takashi Tsuchiya. "JAPANESE MEDICAL ATROCITIES 1932-45: WHAT, WHO, HOW AND WHY?" (PDF). Alpha-canada.org. Retrieved 2016-05-19.
  3. ^ Guillemin, Jeanne (September 2017). Hidden Atrocities: Japanese Germ Warfare and American Obstruction of Justice at the Tokyo Trial. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0-231-54498-6.
  4. ^ "Imperial Japan's Abominable Dr. Death, And The Most Disgraceful War Crime "Amnesia" In History". Forbes.com. 2014-03-09. Retrieved 2016-05-19.
  5. ^ "[IAB8] Imperial Japanese Medical Atrocities". Lit.osaka-cu.ac.jp. Retrieved 2016-05-19.