Unit 731 , a department of the Imperial Japanese Army located near Harbin ( then in the puppet state of Manchukuo , in northeast China ) , experimented on prisoners by conducting vivisections , dismemberments , and bacterial inoculations . It induced epidemics on a very large scale from 1932 onward through the Second Sino-Japanese war . It also conducted biological and chemical weapons tests on prisoners and captured POWs . With the expansion of the empire during World War II , similar units were set up in conquered cities such as Nanking ( Unit 1644 ) , Beijing ( Unit 1855 ) , Guangzhou ( Unit 8604 ) and Singapore ( Unit 9420 ) . After the war , Supreme Commander of the Occupation Douglas MacArthur gave immunity in the name of the United States to Shirō Ishii and all members of the units in exchange for all of the results of their experiments
Unit 731
Unit 731
Human subject research