Company Cherry Blossom Night
| date | September 22, 1945 |
|---|---|
| place | United States West Coast : San Diego |
| output | Operation canceled |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
| Commander | |
|
Shiro Ishii as Head of Unit 731 |
|
The Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night was a planned Japanese military company with biological weapons in 1945 against the United States should be given, however, was not carried out. The aim was to infect San Diego , California with pest-infected fleas in a final attempt to dissuade the United States from invading the main Japanese islands . The plan was never carried out because the US previously used nuclear weapons .
Starting position
In the last days of World War II, Unit 731 , a unit of the Imperial Japanese Army for the development of bio-weapons, planned an attack on the United States. Kamikaze bombers laden with plague bombs were supposed to contaminate a poorly defended but densely populated area in the continental United States.
At this point in time, the capacities of the Japanese Navy were overstretched and close to collapse. Therefore, the kamikaze planes were to be transported to the coast of the USA with covertly operating submarine aircraft carriers in order to take off there.
The target was San Diego , which was to be attacked on September 22, 1945.
preparation
The plague pathogens were spread among prisoners of war by Japanese doctors in order to infect them with the plague. In order to be sure of how it works with Europeans, at least 1,500 US prisoners of war were infected with the plague without their knowledge.
General Shiro Ishii had Unit 731 of the Imperial Japanese Army drop bombs with pest-infected fleas on Chinese cities as part of field tests in order to trigger plague epidemics.
planning
Toshimi Mizobuchi , trainer of the recruits of Unit 731, formulated the idea of sending 20 of the 500 new troops that arrived in Harbin by submarine in July 1945 into the waters off southern California so that they could airborne San Diego with plague. infected fleas. The scheduled date for this was September 22, 1945. Ishio Obata had been assigned to lead the operation.
At that time, Japan had at least five U-cruisers of the I-400 class , each of which could carry two or three special Aichi M6A aircraft in watertight tubes.
Result
The plan was supposed to be implemented on September 22, 1945, but was not implemented because of Japan's surrender on August 15, 1945. On August 9, members of Unit 731 attempted to destroy the evidence of the biological weapons program with explosives.
See also
Remarks
- ^ The trial of Unit 731. The Japan Times, accessed June 17, 2015 .
- ↑ Unmasking Horror - A special report .; Japan Confronting Gruesome War Atrocity. New York Times, accessed June 17, 2015 .
- ↑ a b Japan prepared the use of bio-weapons against the USA. World Week, accessed June 17, 2015 .
- ↑ a b Deadly Cherry Blossom - With human experiments, Tokyo worked in 1945 on the biological bomb against America. focus.de, accessed on June 17, 2015 .
- ^ A b c John Geoghegan: Operation Storm: Japan's Top Secret Submarines and Its Plan to Change the Course of World War II . Broadway Books, 2014, ISBN 0-7704-3573-4 , pp. 312 .
- ^ A b Weapons of Mass Destruction - Plague as Biological Weapons Agent . GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved December 21, 2014.