Pacific Atrocities Education was founded by Jennifer Chan. She has authored books on the occupation of Hong Kong, Japan’s Unit 731, and Chinese “comfort women”. As part of her research, she has scanned over one million pages from the national archives.
I was unaware of Unit 731 until Jennifer showed up on my radar. This notorious group conducted “research” with a level of inhumanity comparable or exceeding the Nazis. Live vivisections, amputations, tying prisoners in the cold to study frostbite were all part of their legacy. They also developed and tested biological and chemical warfare weapons on unsuspecting Chinese villagers.
Between the years of 1939 and 1945, it is estimated that these experiments killed and poisoned more than a million Chinese, Koreans, Mongolians, and Russians. The Chinese countryside alone suffered more than 250,000 deaths because of Japanese biological warfare. Interestingly, Unit 731 was not the brainchild of the Japanese military but rather a scientist named Ishii Shiro. Shiro first attracted the emperor’s attention by demonstrating a filter to purify human urine so it became drinkable.
Unlike the German Nuremberg trials, many of the Japanese offenders never saw justice. Allied powers provided many of them with immunity in exchange for their research.
During WWII, The Japanese kidnapped over 200,000 women from China, the Philippines, Korea, Netherlands & Indonesia to serve as “comfort women” for Japanese troops. In essence, they were pressed into sexual slavery. More than forty “comfort stations” were established in Nanjing alone.
Despite the passage of 80 years since the war, the Japanese government has never officially recognized or apologized for Unit 731 or the comfort women.
The Pacific Atrocities has a variety of historical articles about the war including ones about the connection between wartime developments and the creation of the Cheetos snack food and the Cup of Noodles instant Ramen empire. Jennifer also shares a fascinating story about how the Puma and Adidas shoe companies were founded by two feuding German brothers.
Jennifer says that she is often accused of being “anti-Japanese” but nothing could be further from the truth.