World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseYoshio Shinozuka was born in Chiba Prefecture, Japan in 1923 as the second of five children. In Feb 1939, at the age of 15, he passed the examination for assignment with Unit 731, the Japanese Army's human experimentation program located in northeastern China, and arrived in Harbin, China in May 1939. As a junior member of the team, he assisted in the care of various bacteria samples. Between Oct 1942 and Jan 1943, he personally took part in experiments and vivisections involving seven Chinese civilians. In Mar 1943, he was released from Unit 731 and served in various roles with the Kwangtung Army in China from Mar 1944 until the end of the war. He remained in northeastern China after the war to assist in keeping peace until Chinese forces could re-occupy northeastern China. In Feb 1946, he was arrested by Chinese communist partisans. The Chinese communists initially thought he was an ordinary Army medic, and thus forced him to train communist counterparts, and then forced him to lecture at the Tianjin Medical University. In 1953, he admitted that he was a member of Unit 731, and the Chinese communists detained him at the Fushun War Criminals Management Center in Liaoning, China. He was released in Jun 1956 and was sent back to Japan. In 1984, he apologized for his participation in Unit 731. In 1997, he gave testimony on the activities of Unit 731 on behalf of 180 Chinese who were suing the Japanese government for compensation and apology; he said "I was a member of Unit 731 and I have done what no human being should ever do." In 1998, he was scheduled to give a speech at a peace conference in the United States and Canada, but he was denied entry at the O'Hare International Airport in Chicago, Illinois, United States for being a war criminal. He passed away in 2014.

Yoshio Shinozuka Timeline