What research and development unit allegedly involved ex-soldier Yasuji Kaneko?
Unit 731 Unit 731 (Japanese: 731部隊 , Hepburn: Nana-san-ichi Butai ) was a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army that undertook lethal human experimentation during the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) of World War II. It was responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes carried out by Japan. Unit 731 was based at the Pingfang district of Harbin, the largest city in the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo (now Northeast China).
Shinsaku Yanai Shinsaku Yanai (柳内伸作 , Yanai Shinsaku , born 1947, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese writer who formerly held the rank of major in the Japan Ground Self-Defense Force. He is a graduate of Tokyo Keizai University ( ) and the Ground Self-Defense Force Research School (陸上自衛隊調査学校 ) , where he took courses in psychological warfare. In 1992, while still employed by the SDF as an instructor of military history, he published an article in Japanese magazine "Shūkan Bunshun" in which he suggested that a coup was necessary to clean up corruption in the Japanese political establishment. The incident was described as "an extreme source of embarrassment" for the SDF; the public were more amused than outraged by the article, and even some of Yanai's colleagues anonymously referred to him as a "crackpot". In response, the SDF dismissed Yanai from his post. He was the first officer in any branch of the Self Defense Forces to be dismissed in response to his authorship of a newspaper article.