Unit 731
79
MENTIONS
38
EPISODES
35
PODCASTS
Search complete. 79 mentions across 38 episodes found for "Unit 731".
Sep 30, 2026
StephHOST
It was some of the sickest shit you've ever heard of.
Mike RainsHOST
What you're thinking of is Unit 731.
StephHOST
Yeah,
Mike RainsHOST
sorry, sorry.
Mike RainsHOST
Unit 731.
Mike RainsHOST
And then do a Google search for comfort women.
Mike RainsHOST
It's really kind of crazy the way Nazis got nailed with all of their war crimes, yet we view Imperial Japan as a sort of weird anime monster.
Brett BaylesHOST
Speaking of bad things done during war, World War II, this is another famous one, and the more you learn about this one, uh, the more, um, I guess, dark shades appear under your eyes.
Brett BaylesHOST
This was Japan's secret Unit 731 program.
Brett BaylesHOST
So Japan was conducting human experiments, uh, where they would basically, um, run all of these experiments on, on captured prisoners, uh, or, like, Chinese people that they would be overtaking.
Brett BaylesHOST
And they did all these experiments on live people to see how they could better spread things like cholera, anthrax, um, and they also did some dabbling in plague-infested fleas.
Brett BaylesHOST
Um, and this was actually used where they would drop, uh, fleas that were infested with the plague, and, uh, in Chinese cities, and it ended up spreading and killing thousands of people.
Brett BaylesHOST
Uh, so yeah, you wanna never sleep again or lose all faith in humanity, read about Unit 731.
Brett BaylesHOST
In the Cold War, the US and Soviet Union were going at it.
Brett BaylesHOST
They both were developing massive biological arsenals.
speaker_2HOST
Let's begin in the Pacific theater of World War II with Shiro Ishii.
speaker_2HOST
He was a surgeon and a high-ranking officer in the Japanese Imperial Army, chosen to lead Unit 731.
speaker_2HOST
This was the military's covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit.
speaker_3HOST
A literal factory of death.
speaker_2HOST
They even tested biological bombs by dropping plague-infected fleas on completely unsuspecting civilian villages.
speaker_3HOST
It's biological terrorism.
speaker_2HOST
And the most defining, chilling statistic of all, out of the thousands of people imprisoned inside Unit 731, there were famously no survivors.
speaker_2HOST
Every single test subject was eventually killed and autopsied.
JoeHOST
There's a lot of weird racial dynamics going on in Manchukuo.
JoeHOST
For example, Manchukuo is where Unit 731 is.
JoeHOST
We did an episode on them.
JoeHOST
Maybe don't go listen to that, but Unit 731 will come up during this episode a little bit.
JoeHOST
It's headquartered in Harbin.
JoeHOST
And one of the things the Japanese did was use as many Russian people for test subjects as they could.
34 MINS LATER
JoeHOST
It's a very interesting story.
JoeHOST
And that speech occurs on the 15th of August.
BrentHOST
They're really 50 years into something very similar.
BrentHOST
I believe it was Unit 731.
BrentHOST
That's it right there.
BrentHOST
So they basically were given the medical and the state sponsored go ahead to use human beings as medical experimentation.
Brian SimcoeGUEST
Oh,
BrentHOST
yeah.
BrentHOST
Do you have any other stories of similarities, parallels from this unit 731 that were basically the predecessors for how this Kyushu University Hospital now was doing some of the same things on fallen airmen?
Brian SimcoeGUEST
Well, they were working at the same time.
Pete OhlingerHOST
Yeah.
Pete OhlingerHOST
Unit 731.
Pete OhlingerHOST
Yeah.
Pete OhlingerHOST
Yeah.
Johnny CirucciGUEST
Unit 731.
Johnny CirucciGUEST
There you go.
Johnny CirucciGUEST
Oh, yeah.
LeroyHOST
right.
LeroyHOST
If anybody ever wants to read a really great horror story, look up the history on Japanese Unit 731.
LeroyHOST
Really?
Matt SpeerHOST
Is it good?
Matt SpeerHOST
That was all learned by the Japanese.
Matt SpeerHOST
The Japanese were horrible.
LeroyHOST
two sentences on the key details behind the unit unit 731 was covert biological and chemical warfare warfare research and development division and from there i'll let your imaginations go with it
Matt SpeerHOST
yeah so a lot of people are wondering is that where the nips came from yeah and zipper heads and other derogatory yellow monkeys and other derogatory names came from the u.s military of course It's the same thing with camel jockeys or sahibs or whatever, towelheads and goat fuckers and all of it comes from the military.
JohnHOST
The Japanese did a lot of similar stuff.
JohnHOST
You'll always hear about the Nazis, but the Japanese were doing some crazy shit in Manchuria under a unit called Unit 731, where they did the same thing.
JohnHOST
But I don't know, like a little more sick, if that's possible.
JohnHOST
Yeah.
Dagogo AltraideHOST
Meanwhile, intelligence had discovered something chilling.
Dagogo AltraideHOST
Reports emerged that the Japanese army had developed a biological weapons program, Unit 731.
Dagogo AltraideHOST
The facilities conducted horrific experiments on human subjects, and worst of all for the United States.
Dagogo AltraideHOST
In about one month, they were preparing a biological attack on the American west coast.
BrentHOST
And like you said, that's just a small subsect that nobody even hears about.
BrentHOST
That's just like a sub unit or operating mechanism of that unit 731.
BrentHOST
So we're talking, they put him down.
BrentHOST
He thinks he's getting a shoulder injury dress.
12 MINS LATER
BrentHOST
And from some of the other things that I was like kind of reading on these things is like we said, if you don't kill yourself in face of your enemy, you are subhuman, you are, you know, whatever.
BrentHOST
So you've waived your right to any type of human decency.
BrentHOST
And the Maruta is a log and I'm probably mispronouncing it, but that is how a lot of the unit 731 victims were referred to as Maruta.
BrentHOST
They're logs like, Hey, It's okay to chop down a tree.
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