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A seven-year taboo on discussing the live dissection of US prisoners of war in Japan during the Second World War has finally been broken.

Details of air crash survivors being sent off for medical experiments were exhibited in a small section of a new museum which opened on Saturday at Kyushu University, in the city of Fukuoka.

Part of the museum, which features more than a century of history at one of Japan's main medical schools, tells the story of a B-29 Superfortress that had taken off from the Pacific island of Guam before being rammed by a Japanese fighter on May 5, 1945.

Crew were subjected to horrifying medical experiments, including having parts of their organs removed, which none of them survived.

(Image: Getty)

Local records show that of the 12 aircraft members, one died when his parachute cords were cut by another fighter and two others were stabbed to death by locals when they landed, according to Kyodo News.

The rest of the crew were arrested, with eight of them handed over to a military doctor and transported to Kyoto Imperial University's College of Medicine, the old version of Kyushu University.

It was claimed in a testimony against 30 doctors and university staff in 1948 that doctors gave the prisoners of war intravenous injections of seawater to test if it could serve as a substitute for sterile saline solution.

According to the hearing of the Allied War Crimes tribunal in Yokohama, other survivors had parts of their livers and brains removed.

(Image: Getty)

The doctors then tried to cover up their evidence at the end of the war, with one physician committing suicide in prison before the trial.

Todoshi Tono, one of the doctors involved, later dedicated his life to exposing the atrocities.

He said of the tests: “I could never again wear a white smock.

“The prisoners thought we were doctors, so they didn’t struggle. They never dreamed they would be dissected.”

All of the aircraft staff died and their remains were preserved in formaldehyde until the end of the war.

Charges of cannibalism were dropped against the doctors due to a lack of evidence but 23 people were convicted of carrying out vivisection or the wrongful removal of body parts.

By 1958, every person involved in the case was released – despite five being sentenced to death and four receiving life sentences.

University professors agreed to include information about the case in the museum at a meeting in March.