UNIT 731 - Covert medical unit mentioned on the fantasy drama THE X-FILES/FOX/1993-2002. During World War II, a special unit of Japanese Army doctors experimented on prisoners of war. These POWs were subjected to horrible tortures (exposed to diseases, extreme temperatures, operations without anesthesia) similar to those performed by Nazi German physicians. The offending medical officers known as Unit 731 were the focus of the X-FILES episode No.58 "731." A Nazi war criminal named Victor Klemper (Walter Gotell), who performed similar "medical experiments" on Jews in German concentration camps appeared on episode No. 50 "Paper Clip." Klemper like Unit 731 were supposedly sheltered from the Nuremburg War Crimes Tribunal so that their medical results on human limitations could be shared with the American government to help them win the space race.

TRIVIA NOTE: Toward the end of the Second World War, the real Unit 731 was perfecting a "plague bomb" filled with diseased fleas that carried the bubonic plague. Such bombs were already dropped on towns in China to test their effectiveness. The Japanese were planning to drop one of these bombs on the city of San Diego, but the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ended this threat. 

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