prisoners of war from different countries were used as subjects for the experiments, including Soviet and Chinese prisoners. Unit 731 The plan for the Kaimingjie germ weapon attack was devised by General Shirō Ishii within Unit 731, which worked on development of biological and chemical weapons. This unit was tasked with performing experiments into chemical agents that had the potential to be used and developed into biological weapons. The unit conducted experiments with infectious diseases in which researchers subjected Chinese captives and captured insurgents to cholera, syphilis, and bubonic plague. Additionally, the unit performed vivisection on their human subjects after they were infected with these various diseases. Invasive surgeries were performed on humans where individual organs would be removed from live subjects and studied to understand the effects of diseases. Unit 731 also studied the effects of various toxins. Specific experiments conducted included testing poison gas on prisoners, testing bubonic plague bombs, and testing frostbite and its remedies on live people. Additionally this unit studied malnutrition, tetanus, anthrax, dysentery, glanders and more. Most of these experiments were carried out in a facility called Ping Fan in Harbin, Manchukuo. Ping Fan was an important site for the study of frostbite, wherein living people’s limbs were frozen and then thawed out. Those who were conducting experiments did not employ anaesthesia and left their subjects fully awake whilst they were being operated on, as claimed by Japanese army doctor Yasua Ken. It has also been alleged that British and American prisoners of war were subject to biological weapons experimentation at a detention camp near Mukden, though in 1986 the British Ministry of Defence denied any evidence of these events. Unit 731 was involved in production and delivery of poison gases, and in 1929, a factory on Okunoshima was established to produce various poisonous gases such as mustard gas and phosphene gas. These gases were then transported to the city of Kokura and packaged into artillery shells to be used on Chinese combatants and civilians. It is alleged that the gases were used on these groups over 2000 times. Unit 731 bred yellow rats and fleas in order to spread pathogens. This took place mainly at Ping Fan. Rats would be infected with the plague, and fleas would be raised on the blood of these infected rats. Pathogen infected fleas would be encased in a weapon called the Uji bomb, a ceramic bomb designed