← Back to the front page

WWII’s French Serial Killer Doctor and Other Forgotten Monsters From History

Khalid Elhassan January 27, 2020 32 min

22. Saved By the Bomb

Aichi M6A1 Seiran float plane. Wikimedia

Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night was scheduled for September 22^nd, 1945, but the atomic bombing of Japan in August ended the war. Japan formally surrendered on September 2^nd, less than three weeks before the launch date of Shiro Ishii’s plan to infect America with the plague.

After the war, it was estimated that Ishii’s germ warfare and experiments had killed anywhere from tens of thousands to 400,000 Chinese from bubonic plague, anthrax, cholera, and other diseases. According to the most reliable recent estimate, from the 2002 International Symposium on the Crimes of Biological Warfare, victims of the Japanese biological warfare overseen by Ishii numbered as high as 580,000. Yet, the Japanese doctor never faced a war crimes tribunal, nor was he ever held accountable for his horrific deeds.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.