re forced to work in the complex were then machined-gunned to death. About 600 were killed this way, the bodies of the victims cremated in three large ovens the same way as those used in the Nazi death camps, and their ashes then dumped into the nearby Sungari River. The whole Pingfan complex was then blown up before the Russians arrived. Pingfan had 4,500 flea breeding machines which produced 100 million infected fleas every few days. These fleas, infected with plague, typhoid, cholera and anthrax organisms, were to be dropped on the invasion troops in a last ditch effort to win the war. Most of these plague-infected fleas was purposely released before the complex was destroyed. North-eastern China immediately became a disaster area and at least 30,000 people died over the next three years from plague and other diseases.
About 350 miles from Pingfan (the Germ Warfare Complex in Manchuria) was the prisoner of war camp at Mukden where 1,485 American, British and Australian P.O.W.s were sent in November, 1942. The American prisoners arrived in terrible shape via the hell-ship Totori Maru and suffering from all sorts of diseases contacted during their imprisonment at Camp O'Donnell and Cabanatuan. In August, 1942, around 1,500 men from Cabanatuan boarded the Totori Maru and sailed for Pusan in Korea. From Pusan they boarded a train destined for Mukden, Manchuria. There were two camps at Mukden, one at Hoten and the other at Hsien, the later holding the higher ranking Allied prisoners who were to be used as hostages in the event of an Allied invasion of Japan. The prisoners at Hoten were put to work producing parts for Japanese aircraft and tanks at the MKK factory. The deaths incurred here were due to neglect, disease, hunger, Japanese brutality and accidental bombing by US aircraft on December 7, 1944 when 19 P.O.W.s were killed and 54 wounded. By November, 1943, a total of 84 British, 16 Australians and a large number of US servicemen had perished.
It is estimated that around 60,000 prisoners, including Chinese and Manchurian slave labourers, lost their lives at Pingfan and Mukden. Chemical and biological experimental Units 731 and 100 of the Germ Warfare Complex were situated at Pingfan. It was here that Chinese and Manchurian nationals were experimented upon. It is not known exactly how many Allied P.O.W.s were subjected to these experiments but their numbers were relatively small. The terrible experiences suffered by prisoners at Pingfan and Mukden, has been, for over forty years, one of the best kept secrets of the Second World War. With the exception of one or two, none of the Japanese scientists and doctors at Mukden or Pingfan were ever brought to trial, owing to a deal done with the USA, through General Douglas MacArthur, in which it offered immunity from war crimes in exchange for scientific data acquired at Mukden and Pingfan to give the US some germ warfare advantage over the communist Soviet Union. Unit 731s records were moved to US military research centre at Fort Dietrich in Maryland and today are still classified Top Secret. After repeated requests by war crime investigators for authority to arrest General Ishii and the Imperial Prince Takamatus (Emperor Hirohito's cousin) the requests were denied by MacArthur. After the war these men, about thirty five of them, held top positions in Japanese medical and scientific institutions. General Ishii died of throat cancer in 1959.
The combined figure of British and American prisoners of war who died while in Japanese captivity, totalled 24,969. Over 22,000 Australians were prisoners of the Japanese. Of these, 8,296 died while in captivity. Of the Australians who ended up in German P.O.W. camps, 265 died in captivity. Allied POWs in Germany died at rate of 1.2%. Throughout the Pacific area they died at the rate of 37%.
THE BIG PAYOUT
By the year 2002, Germany had paid out 102 billion Deutschmarks in restitution and compensation to the victims of the Nazi regime. Germany has largely faced up to its legal and moral obligations and admitted its guilt. Not so Japan. Den