Shiro Ishii was born on June 25, 1892 in a small village two hours from Tokyo.

He went on to study at the prestigious Kyoto Imperial University and earned awards from the United States and Europe for his work. He also received his Doctorate of Medicine in 1911.

Ishii studied bacteriology for his postgraduate work and married the school president’s daughter.

He also enlisted in the army and quickly rose to a lieutenant.

It was clear Ishii was a gifted and smart young man with a bright future.

Yet, about two years later, he responsible for running Unit 731, a “prison camp” that was used to develop biological and chemical weapons that were tested on prisoners.

When Ishii learned about the Geneva Convention of 1925, which prohibited biological and chemical warfare, he was encouraged by this notion since if something were “bad enough to be outlawed, then it must certainly be effective.”

However, just as it took years for Hitler to gain power and create the concentration camps, Ishii too played the long game.

By the 1930s, Japan was expanding its power on to the Asian mainland and the military needed to figure out ways to prevent diseases infecting their troops.

Ishii also worked on turning bacteria and gas into weapons, but animal research had serious limits in producing usable data.

Then in 1933, Japan withdrew from the League of Nations, which had judged it wrong for its aggression against China. This severance of ties would play a big role in the creation of Unit 731 since the country no longer had promises to keep.

During this time, Japan’s Emperor had created a special police force called like kenpeitai, much like the Nazi SS or the Soviet NKVD.

Groups or individuals responsible for anti-Japanese resistance, were quickly captured by the kenpeitai. They were given jobs such as catching spies and interrogating suspects, and were “authorized to use torture” (pg 30).

All of the pieces were slowly falling into place.