World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseHisato Yoshimura was born in 1907. In 1930, he graduated from Kyoto Imperial University School of Medicine. In 1936, he began to lecture at the Kyoto Imperial University. In Apr 1936, he received his doctorate degree in medicine from the same school. In 1938, he was made a member of the Unit 731 human experimentation program located in northeastern China and was placed in charge of frostbite research. Later, he would argue that he was forced by his superiors to take part in this program. In this role, he would regularly experiment on Chinese civilians (including children and infants) and prisoners of war, allowing their arms and legs to freeze, and then place the frozen limbs in water of various warmth to observe the thawing effects. During the 1949 Khabarovsk war crimes trial, Sergeant Major Satoru Kurakazu testified against Yoshimura:

ww2dbaseAt the end of the war, Yoshimura was able to escape Soviet capture and returned the Japan. Because of his ill-gotten knowledge, he was granted immunity from war crimes investigation, so that the knowledge could be shared with the American occupation authority. In 1962, he was made the chair of the Japan Meteorological Society. Between Mar 1967 and Jul 1969, he was the President of Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine. In 1972, he became a professor at the Hyogo College of Medicine. In 1978, he was awarded Order of the Rising Sun 3rd Class for his achievements in the field of biological adaptation. In 1980, he became a professor at Kobe Women's University. In 1984, he published his memoirs. He passed away in 1990.