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Shirō Ishii

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Shirō Ishii

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Also known as Shiro Ishii, Shirou Ishii

Japanese army medical officer and microbiologist, war criminal and director of Unit 731 (a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army)

Person · Open Library

Born
1935
Works
8

Top works

  • 転換期の大学院教育
  • 日本国制史研究
  • 権力と土地所有
  • 日本近代法史講義
  • 武器の進化と退化の学際的硏究

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Country
JP
Active from
1970

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Key facts

Native name
石井 四郎
Born
( 1892-06-25 ) 25 June 1892, Shibayama, Chiba , Japan
Died
9 October 1959 (1959-10-09) (aged 67), Tokyo, Japan
Allegiance
Empire of Japan
Branch
Imperial Japanese Army
Service years
1921–1945
Rank
Surgeon general ( lieutenant-general )
Commands
Unit 731
Conflicts
Second Sino-Japanese War World War II
Awards
Order of the Golden Kite , Fourth Class
Alma mater
Kyoto Imperial University

via Wikipedia infobox

Wikidata facts

Instance of
human
Given name
Shirō
Family name
Ishii
Gender
male
Citizenship
Empire of Japan
Languages spoken
Japanese
Religion
Latin Church
Conflict
World War II
Military branch
Imperial Japanese Army
Military rank
lieutenant general
Image
Shiro Ishii at a reunion party of Unit 731 members after the war.png
Show 13 more facts
date of birth
1892-06-25
date of death
1959-10-09
cause of death
laryngeal cancer
Commons category
Shirō Ishii
manner of death
natural causes
name in kana
いしい しろう
name in native language
石井 四郎
allegiance
Empire of Japan
start of work period
1921-00-00
interested in
chemical warfare
significant person
Tetsuzan Nagata
present in work
Eyes of Dawn
military unit
Unit 731
Sources (5)

via Wikidata · CC0

~14 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Surgeon General Shirō Ishii (Japanese: 石井 四郎, Hepburn: Ishii Shirō; [iɕiː ɕiɾoː]; 25 June 1892 – 9 October 1959) was a Japanese biological weapons specialist, microbiologist and army medical officer who served as the director of Unit 731, the largest biological warfare and chemical warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army.

Ishii led the development and application of biological weapons at Unit 731 in the puppet state of Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945. This included the Battle of Changde, the Kaimingjie germ weapon attack, and the planned Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night biological attack against the United States, which intended to spread a weaponized bubonic plague. Ishii and his colleagues also engaged in human experimentation, resulting in the deaths of thousands of subjects, most of them civilians or prisoners of war.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Shirō Ishii” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.