21. Japan’s Most Evil Doctor of World War II
Doctor Shiro Ishii (1892 – 1959) was one of the Second World War’s more evil but lesser-known monsters. His turn to evil was unfortunate, because he had begun his career with great promise. As a young man, Ishii had been a brilliant medical student and doctor. He was commissioned into the Imperial Japanese Army as a surgeon in 1921, and became one of Japan’s greatest bacterial research specialists. Among other things, he invented a revolutionary filtration system that could remove all bacteria from stagnant water.
Dr. Ishii turned to the dark side in 1933, and shifted his focus from preventing bacterial infections to weaponizing bacteria for use in warfare. That year, Japan had seized Manchuria from China. Ishii moved there with a team of researchers, and set up a biological experimentation operation, Unit 731. For guinea pigs, Ishii and his researchers experimented upon live humans, mostly captured Chinese soldiers and civilians deemed hostile to the Japanese occupation. They also experimented on Soviet soldiers captured in border skirmishes, and on Allied prisoners of war after Japan joined World War II.
