Japan to excavate WWII human experimentation site
Excavations are beginning at the site of a former medical school in Japan which could yield evidence of war-time experiments on prisoners. The site in western Tokyo is said to be linked to Unit 731 of the Japanese Imperial Army, which used prisoners for biological warfare experiments. The excavation was ordered after a former nurse came forward. Toyo Ishii said workers were made to bury dozens of bodies there after the surrender at the end of World War II. Ms Ishii, now 88, first came forward several years ago. A nurse in the hospital's oral surgery department, she said she had no knowledge of any experiments on humans at the site, which is said to have been the research headquarters of the unit. But she and her colleagues were ordered to take bodies and body parts for burial in the compound before US troops arrived.