Timeline

• June 17, 1925. Seven years after WWI, the Geneva Protocol bans chemical and bacteriological weapons. Notably, the US and Japan decline to sign. John Singer Sargent’s painting “Gassed” vividly depicts the burning, blindness and death among defenseless troops, and becomes an icon of the suffering. (Introduction)
• September 18, 1931. After invading China’s resource-rich northeast, Japan creates the puppet state of Manchukuo where, under the Kwantung Army, it will establish its biological warfare program. (Prologue and Introduction)
• 1932-1935. Major General Ishii Shiro conducts disease freezing exposure tests on Chinese captives in Manchukuo. (Prologue)
• 1936. Pingfan, the enormous secret enclave for Ishii’s program, is built outside the city of Harbin in Manchukuo. (Prologue)
• July 1937. Japan begins a full scale war with China and, in 1940-41, incorporates attacks using plague-fleas with conventional air attacks on four Chinese cities (Ningbo, Jinhua, Quhzou, and Changde). Hundreds of Chinese civilians die from the epidemics (Prologue and Chapter 1)
• October 1940-November 1941, General Umezu Yishijiro, head of the Kwantung Army in Manchukuo and known as “the Ivory Mask,” assists Ishii in waging germ attacks on China. (Prologue)
• December 7, 1941. The Japanese attack Pearl Harbor and cause the United States to declare war on the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan), with China as its major ally in Asia. (Introduction)
• May-August, 1942. Japan wages a campaign to destroy air bases and railroads in China’s Jiangxi and Zhejiang Provinces and enlists General Ishii, under the auspices of the Kwantung Army’s Unit 731, to conduct simultaneous mass attacks of plague, anthrax, cholera, glanders and other infectious diseases. (Prologue)
• August 7, 1945. To force Japan’s surrender, the United States drops an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. Approximately 70,000 Japanese were immediately killed. After five years, another 140,000 succumbed to the effects of radiation. (Introduction)
• August 9, 1945. An atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, killing 40,000 on impact, with 140,000 subsequent victims. On August 14, Emperor Hirohito agrees to surrender. (Introduction)
• September 2, 1945. On the deck of the USS Missouri in Tokyo harbor, US General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), conducts the signing of the surrender agreement, which included a mandate for war crimes prosecution. Now Japan’s chief of staff, General Umezu signs the agreement, along with Foreign Minister Shigemitsu Mamoru (with cane). (Chapter 1)
• September-October, 1946. As part of the Scientific Intelligence Survey of Japanese weapons expertise, microbiologist Murray Sanders from the US biological warfare program conducts interviews with former Unit 731 scientists and General Umezu, who all insist Japan had no germ warfare aims. Sanders is guided by Dr. Naito Ryioshi, formerly of Pingfan. (Chapter 2)
• November 1946. Major General Charles Willoughby, head of US Military Intelligence (G-2) in Tokyo, pursues interrogations of Unit 731 scientists. He works in close cooperation with Major General Alden Waitt, head of the Army’s Chemical Warfare Service and its biological warfare program, both eclipsed by atomic weapons and scheduled for elimination. Fleet Admiral William Leahy, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is alerted to Japan’s biological weapons by the State-War-Navy Coordinating Committee (SWNCC). (Chapter 2)
• January 17, 1946. General MacArthur announces the creation of the IMTFE (International Military Tribunal for the Far East), based on the same framework as the Nuremberg IMT. In addition to the US, UK, Soviet Union, and France, China, the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada, and later India and the Philippines are asked to nominate judges and chief prosecutors. (Chapter 3)
• January 1946. Chief of counsel for the International Prosecution Section, Joseph B. Keenan enjoys the media spotlight, leaving administration to his staff and UK lawyers. US prosecutor Frank S. Tavenner often takes his place at IPS. (Chapter 3)
• February 1946. Hsiang Che-chun (Xiang Zhejun), chief prosecutor for the Chinese Division, intends to charge Japan with the plague attacks and chemical warfare, along with other war crimes, such as the notorious “Nanjing Massacre” from 1937 loom large. (Chapter 3)
• March-April 1946. To help Prosecutor Hsiang, US prosecutor David Nelson Sutton is sent to find evidence of the plague attacks in China, but lacking eye-witnesses from targeted cities, he finds the evidence unconvincing. (Chapters 4 and 5)
• April 29, 1946. The IMTFE officially opens with the reading of the indictment of the defendants, brought by bus to the court from Sugamo Prison. Tojo Hideki, former prime minister, General Umezu and at least four others were early supporters of General Ishii. (Chapter 7)
• May-June 1946. G-2 intervenes at the IPS to delete well-documented chemical warfare charges against Japan and impose strict restrictions on witness selection and interrogation. G-2 also blocks Sutton’s access to a crucial first-hand witness of the Changde plague attack, while pursuing secret interrogations of Unit 731 scientists that will reveal war crimes. (Chapter 7)
• June-July, 1946. Leaving aside biological and chemical warfare charges, in court the Chinese Division focuses on the Nanjing atrocities and Japan’s aggressive mode of warfare, with Sutton’s guidance. (Chapter 8)
• September-October 1946. Having invaded Manchukuo soon after Japan’s surrender, the Soviets were able to capture a group of Unit 731 scientists. Armed with two incriminating testimonies, Soviet prosecutors propose jointly presenting germ warfare charges with the United States. Frank Tavenner refuses and the prosecution continues with its often disrupted and disorganized proceedings. (Chapters 8 and 9)
• October 1, 1946. After less than a year, verdicts for the Nuremberg IMT are announced. The tribunal earns great praise from President Truman, in contrast with the Tokyo trial where proceedings lag. (Chapter 9)
• January 1947. Arriving in Tokyo a stellar performance at Nuremberg, Soviet prosecutor Lev Smirnov agitates behind the scenes for access to General Ishii and other Unit 731 scientists being interrogated by G-2. Agreeing, the SWNCC orders G-2 to delay until it is sure the scientists will reveal nothing of importance to the Soviets. (Chapter 9)
• May 3, 1947. General MacArthur petitions the Joint Chiefs, now headed by General Dwight Eisenhower, for either an official pardon for the Unit 731 war criminals or their continued protection by G-2. Meanwhile, the Doctors Trial in Nuremberg has begun exposing Nazi medical experimentation closely resembling the now revealed Japanese atrocities. Finally interviewed by Smirnov in June, Ishii and others deny all charges of war crimes. (Chapter 10)
• December 1947. In a report on the Japanese autopsies of victims of anthrax, plague, glanders, and other disease experiments, two US Army pathologists urge continued protection of the Unit 731 scientists and urge caution against the data “falling into other hands,” that is, to the Soviets. (Chapter 10)
• December 1947-February 1948. Defense lawyers present their case, with a confident Tojo the last defendant to testify. By February the Soviets have let pass their opportunity to enter germ warfare charges, making an official US immunity bargain with Ishii and his cohort unnecessary. (Chapter 11)
• April 16, 1948. The IMTFE proceedings end with Frank Tavenner, often at the podium during the trial, giving the prosecution’s closing speech. See the filmed sequence. (Chapter 11)
• November 12, 1948. The sentences of the Japanese defendants are announced, with Tojo and six others condemned to death. General Umezu and most others receive long sentences, to be commuted after 1952, when Japan regained its sovereignty and a popular backlash against the trial emerged. (Chapter 11 and Epilogue)
• December 25-30, 1949. In the Siberian city of Khabarovsk, the Soviet Union puts a dozen Unit 731 scientists and military officials on trial. The former commander of the Kwantung Army General Yamada Otozo (successor to Umezu) testifies to the unit’s war crimes. The trial was dismissed in the West as anti-American propaganda and a Stalinist “show trial.” (Chapter 11)
• 1949-1969. In the context of the Cold War, the US biological weapons program expands, with an actively aiming for mass attacks with bombs and sprays, mainly on Soviet targets, while nerve gas and other chemical weapons are developed, leading to decades of “fall out” as other nations, large and small, build their CBW arsenals. (Epilogue)
• November 29, 1969. Guided by his national security advisor Henry Kissinger, President Nixon announces the end of the US biological warfare program—the first renunciation of an entire class of weapons in US military history. Kissinger’s primary policy expert for this decision was Harvard biochemist Matthew Meselson, a dedicated advocate for the abolition of biological and chemical weapons. (Epilogue)
• April 10, 1972. The Biological Weapons Convention bans state possession, development and transport of germ weapons. Although later secretly violated by the Soviet Union and rejected by outlier nations, the BWC reinforces important norms and complements the 1925 Geneva Protocol. (Epilogue)
• March 16, 1988. In Halabja, Iraq, Saddam Hussein’s forces attack Kurdish civilian targets, killing thousands, proving that chemical weapons remain a menace. (Epilogue)
• January 1993. In the aftermath of the Cold War, the world community creates the Chemical Weapons Convention, a parallel to the Biological Weapons Convention, with added provisions to aid the state destruction of chemical stockpiles, including the tons of chemical weapons left behind by Japan in China. (Epilogue)
• 1980-2005. After decades of secrecy, during which scientists like Dr. Naito enjoyed successful careers in medicine and industry, revelations of the cover up of Unit 731 war crimes finally surface. Starting in 2000, activist Wang Xuan spearheads the legal effort on behalf of Chinese victims. Japanese judges admit that atrocities were committed, but they deny compensation or an apology to the victims. (Epilogue)
• 2017 and the future. Japan and China, now major economic powers, are vital forces in the future of Asia and the world. Lacking full apologies, including from the United States, the Tokyo trial’s germ warfare failure still troubles this important relationship. Meanwhile, post-Cold War tribunals and the International Criminal Court in The Hague offer new models for bringing justice for the victims of war crimes, not excluding the contemporary nerve gas attacks on Syrian civilians. (Epilogue)