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Unit 731 Unit 731, short for Manchu Detachment 731 and also known as the Kamo Detachment and the Ishii Unit, was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that engaged in lethal human experimentation and biological weapons manufacturing during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) and World War II. Estimates vary as to how many were killed. Between 1936 to 1945, roughly 14,000 victims were murdered in Unit 731. It is estimated that at least 300,000 individuals have died due to infectious illnesses caused by the activities of Unit 731 and its affiliated research facilities. It was based in the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo and had active branch offices throughout China and Southeast Asia. Established in 1936, Unit 731 was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes committed by the Japanese armed forces. It routinely conducted tests on people who were dehumanized and internally referred to as "logs." Victims were further dehumanized by being confined in facilities referred to as "log cabins." Experiments included disease injections, controlled dehydration, biological weapons testing, hypobaric pressure chamber testing, vivisection, organ harvesting, amputation, and standard weapons testing. Victims included not only kidnapped men, women and children but also babies born from the systemic rape perpetrated by the staff inside the compound. The victims also came from different nationalities, with the majority being Chinese and a significant minority being Russian. Additionally, Unit 731 produced biological weapons that were used in areas of China not occupied by Japanese forces, which included Chinese cities and towns, water sources, and fields. Estimates of those killed by Unit 731 and its related programs range up to half a million people, and none of the inmates survived. During the end of the war, all prisoners were killed to conceal evidence. Originally set up by the military police of the Empire of Japan, Unit 731 was taken over and commanded until the end of the war by General Shirō Ishii, a combat medic officer. The facility itself was built in 1935 as a replacement for the Zhongma Fortress, a prison and experimentation camp. Ishii and his team used it to expand their capabilities. The program received generous support from the Japanese government until the end of the war in 1945. On 28 August 2002, Tokyo District Court ruled that Japan had committed biological warfare in China and consequently was responsible for the deaths of many residents. Both the Soviet Union and United States gathered data from the Unit after the fall of Japan. While twelve Unit 731 researchers arrested by Soviet forces were tried at the December 1949 Khabarovsk war crimes trials, they were sentenced lightly to the Siberian labor camp from two to 25 years, in exchange for the information they held. Those captured by the US military were secretly given immunity, The United States helped cover up the human experimentations and handed stipends to the perpetrators. The US had co-opted the researchers' bioweapons information and experience for use in their own warfare program, as did the Soviet Union in building their bioweapons facility in Sverdlovsk using documentation captured from the Unit in Manchuria.