An exhibit in a new medical history museum in Japan sheds light on an infamous chapter in the history of Kyushu University’s med school — the live dissections of US prisoners in World War II.

The museum, which opened Saturday in the city of Fukuoka, details the accomplishments of the pre-eminent medical school over the past century, the Telegraph reported, citing Kyodo News.

But the exhibit about the dark and taboo footnote from World War II is getting the most attention.

The grisly experiments came about as a result of a bombing run by a US B-29 Superfortress that took off from Guam in the Pacific and was shot down near Fukuoka on May 5, 1945.

Its 12 crewmen bailed out, but one died after being shot at while parachuting and two others were later killed by local residents. The remaining nine were taken into custody.

Capt. Marvin Watkins was sent for interrogation in Tokyo and the rest were transferred to Kyoto Imperial University’s College of Medicine, the predecessor of the present-day institution.

In 1948, a hearing of the Allied War Crimes tribunal in Yokohama heard testimony that doctors injected some POWs with seawater as a test if it could replace sterile saline solution.

Doctors removed parts of the livers of other captives to see if they’d survive. In another gruesome experiment about epilepsy, part of a POW’s brain was removed.

The remains of all the crewmen were preserved in formaldehyde until the war’s end, when the evidence was destroyed.

Twenty-three people were convicted of carrying out vivisection or the wrongful removal of body parts. Five were sentenced to death, four received life sentences and the rest got shorter sentences. One doctor committed suicide.

Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the military governor of Japan, commuted the death sentences two years later and reduced most of the prison terms. By 1958, every person convicted in the case had been released.