The report suggested a link to Unit 731 . Former Unit 731 members Shirō Ishii , Masaji Kitano , and Ryoichi Naito , and other Japanese biological warfare experts were often named in the allegations . Former members of Unit 731 were linked initially , by a Communist news agency , to a freighter that allegedly carried them and all equipment necessary to mount a biological warfare campaign to Korea in 1951 . The commission placed credence on allegations that Ishii made two visits to South Korea in early 1952 , and another one in March 1953 . Until 2013 , the official consensus in China was that biological weapons created from an American-Japanese collaboration were used in the Korean episode . Citing the claims Ishii had visited South Korea , the report stated , " Whether occupation authorities in Japan had fostered his activities , and whether the American Far Eastern Command was engaged in making use of methods essentially Japanese , were questions which could hardly have been absent from the minds of members of the Commission . " The International Association of Democratic Lawyers ( IADL ) publicized these claims in its 1952 " Report on U.S. Crimes in Korea " , as did US journalist John W. Powell
Unit 731
Unit 731
Allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War