Dark past of Japan’s Unit 731 buried under airport expansion

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The home village of the biological warfare unit’s commander is being flattened to build a new runway at Tokyo’s Narita Airport

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Julian Ryallin Tokyo

A village that sent hundreds of men to one of imperial Japan’s most notorious wartime units is being demolished to make way for a runway at Tokyo’s Narita International Airport.

Unit 731carried out lethal experiments on captives, many of them Chinese, to develop biological weapons during the second world war. Around 300 of its roughly 3,000 personnel came from Kamo, a neighbourhood in Shibayama town, Chiba prefecture, east of the capital. Its founder and commander, Lieutenant General Shiro Ishii, grew up there.

Demolition began in August, about 5km (three miles) from the southern perimeter fence of Narita’s main runway. Ishii’s family home is among the buildings that have already been flattened.

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