Shirō Ishii

Shirō Ishii

Surgeon General Shirō Ishii (石井 四郎, Ishii Shirō, [iɕiː ɕiɾoː]; June 25, 1892 – October 9, 1959) was a Japanese microbiologist, army medical officer and a war criminal who was granted immunity by the USA after serving as the director of Unit 731, a biological warfare unit of the Imperial Japanese Army. Ishii led the development and application of biological weapons at Unit 731 in Manchukuo during the Second Sino-Japanese War from 1937 to 1945, including the bubonic plague attacks on Chinese cities of Changde and Ningbo, and the planned attack against the United States in the Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night. Ishii and Unit 731 engaged in forced human experimentation on civilians and prisoners of war that resulted in the death of over 10,000 people, and were responsible for some of the most notorious war crimes of Imperial Japan. Ishii and Unit 731 were granted immunity in the International Military Tribunal for the Far East by the United States in exchange for information and research for the U.S. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Shirō Ishii has received more than 1,045,140 page views. His biography is available in 25 different languages on Wikipedia making him the 90th most popular physician.