During the hellish Second Sino-Japanese War (July 7, 1937 – September 9, 1945), an estimated 7,643 people died of the bubonic plague in the outbreaks that exploded after the Imperial Japanese Amy Air Service deliberately bombed parts of Hunan and Zhejiang provinces with fleas infected with the bubonic plague. The fleas were specially raised by the imperial army’s Epidemic Prevention and Water Supply Unit, better known as the notorious Unit 731. Japanese doctors infected yellow rats with the plague and dropped them into flea-filled oil drums. Workers then loaded the weaponized fleas into ceramic shells designed to burst open over the population of these provinces. Japanese generals hoped that a nation-wide plague epidemic would collapse China’s grain harvest and its army would be starved into surrendering.

The Bubonic plague, caused by the Gram-negative bacterium Yersinia pestis, is a flea-borne infection that enters the skin and ravages the lymphatic system, killing about two out of three of infected patients in 2-6 days without treatment. Scientists believe that this nasty bacterium was probably the cause of the Black Death, which killed more than a third of the European population (more than 25 million people) in the 1300s.

The horrors of Unit 731 came into sharp focus on Aug. 27, 2002, when Tokyo judge Koji Iwata issued a landmark decision on a class-action lawsuit brought by 180 Chinese victims of the 1940-41 plague, who sought damages for the biological horrors inflicted by Unit 731. Despite the flood of testimony from alleged victims and even some of its perpetrators, the Japanese government has long denied the allegations leveled at the much-loathed Unit. However, Hon. Iwata found that “The deployment of biological weapons was a strategic part of Japan’s war plans and was carried out under orders from the central army,” and that Unit 731 was responsible for planning and carrying out these atrocities. However, he stopped short of granting the aggrieved parties any compensation, ruling that there is no international law that enables individuals to sue for war damages.

Thanks but no thanks, Judge Iwata.

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