Zhongma Fortress

Zhongma Fortress was a biological warfare research facility erected by the Japanese Kwantung Army in Beiyinhe, outside of Harbin, Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

Background

Shirō Ishii Imperial Japanese Army senior researcher in biological and chemical warfare was assigned to establish a clandestine program to develop weapons of mass destruction under the patronage of Army Minister Sadao Araki.

Ishii built a medical research facility in Harbin shortly after the city came under Japanese control after the Manchurian Incident in 1932. This facility conducted legitimate medical research on vaccines and public health. However, the facility was too close to a highly populated area to be able to conduct clandestine biological warfare research, so Ishii selected a second site about 100 kilometers to the south of Harbin at the village of Beiyinhe. The local inhabitants were forcibly evacuated and their village burnt down, and a large tract of land was fenced off.

Description

The new facility had three meter high earthen walls topped with electrified barbed wire and a moat with drawbridge surrounded the buildings within. There were hundreds of rooms and smaller surrounding laboratories, office buildings, barracks and dining facilities, warehouses and munitions storage, crematoria, and the prison cells. Out of necessity, the Japanese were forced to use local Chinese labor for the construction; but due to secrecy, laborers had to wear a basket over their head to prevent them from seeing more than small sections of the facility, and had be escorted by the army guards. The prisoners brought to Zhongma included common criminals, captured bandits, anti-Japanese partisans, as well as political prisoners and people rounded up at random for suspicious behavior by the Kempeitai.

Human experimentation

A variety of bizarre medical experiments were conducted on the prisoners at Zhongma Fortress. Prisoners were usually well fed, on their usual diet of rice or wheat, with meat, fish and occasionally even alcohol – with the intent of starting experiments with the subjects in their usual state of health. In many cases, prisoners were drained of blood over several days, with careful records kept on their deteriorating physical condition. Others were subject to experiments on nutrient or water deprivation. Prisoners who survived the experiments, but who were deemed too weak for further tests were executed. The facility was estimated to have held between 500-600 prisoners at any one time, with a capacity for over 1000.

Closure

In August 1936, at the time of the traditional summer festival, the prisoners were given a ration of special foods. One prisoner, named Li, managed to overpower his guard, seize the keys and free about forty of his fellow prisoners. Although their legs were shackled, their arms were free, and the prisoners were able to climb the outside walls. A heavy downpour had knocked out the facility's electricity, deactivating the searchlights and electric fence. Some ten of the escapees were shot by guards; others were recaptured or died of exposure, but several managed to escape, and spread word of the crimes against humanity being conducted by Shiro and his subordinates. As a result of this publicity, Zhongma Fortress was closed down, and its activities transferred to a new site closer to Harbin called Pingfang (Heibo), which came to be known as Unit 731.

References

*cite book
last = Gold
first = Hal
year = 2004
title = Unit 731 Testimony
publisher = Tuttle
id = ISBN 0804835659