STORY: A Brit's journey to explore war crimes by Japanese germ warfare unit
SHOOTING TIME: July 7, 2024
DATELINE: July 9, 2024
LENGTH: 00:03:26
LOCATION: HARBIN, China
CATEGORY: SOCIETY/MILITARY

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by the Japanese Army Unit 731
2. SOUNDBITE 1 (English): JACK FORSDIKE, Visitor from the UK
3. SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): SHANG CHUNLEI, Tour guide
4. SOUNDBITE 3 (English): JACK FORSDIKE, Visitor from the UK
5. SOUNDBITE 4 (Chinese): SHANG CHUNLEI, Tour guide
6. SOUNDBITE 5 (English): JACK FORSDIKE, Visitor from the UK

STORYLINE:

SOUNDBITE 1 (English): JACK FORSDIKE, Visitor from the UK
"So I'm here at the Unit 731 museum in Harbin, the evidence of war crimes committed by (Japanese Army) Unit 731 museum. So I'm gonna have a look around and hopefully learn a little bit more about exactly what took place here."

This summer, Jack Forsdike finally visited a museum he had wanted to visit for a long time -- the Museum of Evidence of War Crimes by the Japanese Army Unit 731 in Harbin, the capital of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

Unit 731 was a top-secret biological and chemical warfare research base established in Harbin as the nerve center for Japanese biological warfare in China and Southeast Asia during WWII.
   
At least 3,000 people were used for human experiments by Unit 731.

And more than 300,000 people were killed by Japan's biological weapons in China.

The Brit first learned about the atrocities committed by Japanese troops in China during WWII while he was an exchange student at a university in Beijing about five years ago.

After visiting Harbin, his wife's hometown, he has learned more.

SOUNDBITE 2 (Chinese): SHANG CHUNLEI, Tour guide
"(Head of Unit 731) Shiro Ishii demanded human experiments, so he requested to relocate the bacteriological research facility to northeast China."

SOUNDBITE 3 (English): JACK FORSDIKE, Visitor from the UK
"As they wanted to dehumanize their subjects here, the Japanese came up with the word 'maruta,'  which I believe effectively just means a piece of wood, and this was how they referred to the detainees."

SOUNDBITE 4 (Chinese): SHANG CHUNLEI, Tour guide
"This is the cutting machine used for human experiments.
This is a bone saw.
And this is for hanging human organs."

SOUNDBITE 5 (English): JACK FORSDIKE, Visitor from the UK
"So the overall amount of disease that were stored here, over 500 kilograms of these bacteria were made. Earlier, as I was speaking to the staff, they mentioned that this would be more than enough to wipe out the entire human race. So this is the scale of work that they were doing here.

Coming here is giving me a good understanding of just how much China suffered during WWII, because that's not something we learn a lot about in Europe. Obviously, we learn a lot about WWII itself in our history classes, but in schools, the history is always going to be affected by your geography. So we learn about what takes place in Europe and what impacts the United Kingdom, but we learn very little of what happened to China and how China suffered in this period.

So for me, to learn about somewhere like this and to find out about the sheer scale of war crimes and atrocities that take place in somewhere like this, I think it's very important to learn about.

They've gone to huge huge efforts to make sure that this story is told. And I think that is why I decided that I should still make this video."

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Harbin, China.
(XHTV)