(Xinhua)11:21, September 04, 2020
HARBIN, Sept. 4 (Xinhua) — The names of 468 members of OKA 9420, a Japanese germ warfare unit during World War II, have been disclosed by a Chinese museum.
OKA 9420 is known to be a branch of the notorious Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development operation during WWII. OKA 9420 took part in Japanese germ warfare in southwest Chinas Yunnan Province in 1942.
The list of names, which also includes the unit members dates of birth, nationalities, close relatives and army service records, was obtained from the Ibaraki branch of the National Diet Library, Japan.
The disclosure of the list has academic and historical value for drawing a complete picture of OKA 9420, especially its size, structure, organization, membership, and the commission and location of its major crimes, said Jin Chengmin, curator of the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by the Japanese Army Unit 731.
Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin as the nerve center of Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.
At least 3,000 people were used for human experimentation by Unit 731 and more than 300,000 people in China were killed by Japans biological weapons.