The Devil's Doctors

Book excerpt: The author of Guarding Hitler delivers “a study revealing the Japanese use of Allied POWs in medical experiments during WWII.”—The Guardian The brutal Japanese treatment of Allied POWs in WW2 has been well documented. The experiences of British, Australian and American POWs on the Burma Railway, in the mines of Formosa and in camps across the Far East, were bad enough. But the mistreatment of those used as guinea pigs in medical experiments was in a different league. The author reveals distressing evidence of Unit 731 experiments involving US prisoners and the use of British as control groups in Northern China, Hainau Island, New Guinea and in Japan. These resulted in loss of life and extreme suffering. Perhaps equally shocking is the documentary evidence of British Government use of the results of these experiments at Porton Down in the Cold War era in concert with the US who had captured Unit 731 scientists and protected them from war crime prosecution in return for their cooperation. The author’s in-depth research reveals that, not surprisingly, archives have been combed of much incriminating material but enough remains to paint a thoroughly disturbing story. “The narrative does not seek sensation or attempt to draw irrefutable conclusions where it is clearly impossible to do so, instead it simply provides a balanced assessment of what is known and what seems probable.”—Pegasus Archive