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42 - Unit 731 and Mildred Dresselhaus
34 Plays1 month ago
Jeff tells the horrifying story of Unit 731, a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. Notorious for its inhumane experiments on people, this dark chapter in history is often referred to as the "Asian Auschwitz."
Sam shares the inspiring story of Mildred Dresselhaus, a pioneering physicist and electrical engineer known for her groundbreaking research in carbon materials. Dubbed the "Queen of Carbon," her contributions revolutionized nanotechnology and paved the way for future advancements in science and engineering.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at downtherabbitholepod@gmail.com.
Jeff’s sources:
- Hal, G. (2019). Japan's Infamous Unit 731: Firsthand Accounts of Japan's Wartime Human Experimentation Program. Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.
- Pua, D., Dybbro, D., & Rogers, A. (2019). Unit 731: The Forgotten Asian Auschwitz. Pacific Atrocities Education.
- Pacific Atrocities - Human Experimentation
- Wikipedia - Unit 731
- YouTube Documentary
Sam’s sources:
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:01
Jeff Rogers
Hello, Sam. Hi, Jeffrey.
Introduction and Visit to Occoquan
00:00:25
Jeff Rogers
Welcome um to Down the Rabbit Hole with Jeff and Sam. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. Hello world. Hello Sam. hi Jeffrey. What's going on? Same old same.
00:00:37
Jeff Rogers
Beautiful, beautiful day today. So for the record here in the mid-Atlantic DMV region we are 70 degrees for the first time. And my has it not been splendiferous day.
00:00:51
Jeff Rogers
Esplendiferous Day. And it, we went to a little town. There's a little town close to where we live called Occoquan. And there's a restaurant there called The Secret Garden. Oh my God, it's so good.
00:01:06
Jeff Rogers
they so I haven't been in years. I used to go for brunch. And their mimosas, bottomless mimosas. I mean, oh, my God. Their breakfast is so good. But today was wonderful. I mean, it's this cute little vibe. it's You go up an alley to get to the door, and then you can choose to sit outside or inside. But there's trees overgrown, and it's just very cute.
00:01:30
Jeff Rogers
It's perfect. And their food? Delish. Oh, my God. So good. had the steak salad. I had the goat cheese and candied pecan salad.
00:01:41
Jeff Rogers
And then we took a walk in the cute little town. oh my god, it's such a cute town. It is. It's it's historic and it's beautiful. ah And the sun felt so good. Yeah, 70, 71 right now. This is my happy And stupid time change has happened, so we get the sunshine back for another hour.
00:02:00
Jeff Rogers
Thank god. We might actually be done before the sun sets tonight. I think we will. It 4.40 p.m.
Podcast Availability and Contact Information
00:02:08
Jeff Rogers
Definitely not a.m. m 4.40 p.m.
00:02:11
Jeff Rogers
And we are recording, bringing you this hot mess vortex of fuckery. Oh, fuckery. Fuckery. This is a vortex of fuckery for you. It is.
00:02:24
Jeff Rogers
But it's a good time, and we'll keep doing it. It is so much fun, this thing. Where can you find us, Jeff? Oh, my God. You can find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, and on Amazon.
00:02:35
Jeff Rogers
Woo! And? You can reach out to us at downtherabbitholdepod at gmail.com or on Instagram at downtherabbitholdepod. And we did receive recommendations. I'm going through them now, and I just handed all of the recommendations to Sam.
00:02:51
Jeff Rogers
And love them. I don't know who sent them specifically, but I love them. So when you do one, you tell me that you got it from what I sent you. And I i will think to shout out the person that sent those. Perfect. I will do it.
00:03:06
Jeff Rogers
John. John, John, John. My John? Nope. My John. Okay. He sent one of them. and I don't know which one he sent, but I immediately thought it was for you.
00:03:18
Jeff Rogers
can't wait. It's the one that I showed you, like the boat. but Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know anything about it. That's all I know is that I saw that and I sent it over to you.
00:03:29
Jeff Rogers
Okay, well, I'm excited for that one. Anything new? Anything happening? We have this beautiful hourglass. that It's gorgeous. was like, you know what? We need that for the table. It's beautiful piece of glass.
00:03:41
Jeff Rogers
We got it from the paper company in Aquacorn. don't even know the name of that place. I go there every time, though. But it's great. Let me see.
00:03:51
Jeff Rogers
If you guys live in this area, you should go to the secret garden. You should go to the paper company, and which is not what it's called. Hitchcock paper company. Hitchcock paper company. So cute. And the woman behind the counter, I don't know if she's an owner if she just works there, but she was wonderful as well.
00:04:09
Jeff Rogers
Yep. so what are we drinking today, Samantha? I am drinking my main root spicy ginger brew. drinking that cream soda.
00:04:20
Jeff Rogers
i see IBC cream soda. and so that was We are drinking out of our beer steins. Kelsey. You know, that was a very short intro.
00:04:34
Jeff Rogers
It was. I mean, i i haven't been doing anything new. I haven't watched TV in a while or anything. you know, i'm still reading. Cheers, queers. Cheers, queers.
00:04:45
Jeff Rogers
so It looks like beer. For real. It does, sort of. but but Yeah, kind of. Mine looks questionable. Yeah, it looks like ginger beer.
00:04:58
Jeff Rogers
It does. You're right. Oh. oh Oh, Crimson Peak. That's the one I was telling you about that I watched last night. So I don't know, you know, you Google things and then I ended up on like, it was kind of like the Oscars of the horror movies.
00:05:15
Jeff Rogers
So did you go down a rabbit hole maybe? I went down a rabbit hole. ah And then I found like the awards for best picture horror movie since 1970 something.
00:05:27
Jeff Rogers
And I just did like a Eeny, Meeny, Meeny, Meeny, and i picked crimson peak and it gives mike flanagan vibes what's the show that i told you The Haunting of Hill House and Bly Manor. Yeah, it's like that kind of vibe.
00:05:41
Jeff Rogers
a little scarier, but not as beautifully written. But, yeah, if you want to get harder. Still like a psychological... Okay, cool. All right, I'll have to give it watch.
00:05:55
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Okay. All right. So now is the part where we flip a coin to determine who goes first. One of our growing coins from all around the world.
00:06:06
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Tell me when to stop. Okay.
00:06:13
Jeff Rogers
Sam's smiling. She's looking at me while we're going.
00:06:21
Jeff Rogers
Okay. This is one pound... Oh, little bitch. Oh, is this the one we brought home? Yes, it is. It's from London. From the UK.
00:06:32
Jeff Rogers
Oh, Elizabeth. What a lady. We have fond memories of her. Okay, so you're obviously gonna be the queen. Yes. And i will be... Alan, Ashley.
00:06:43
Jeff Rogers
The crown. The crown with flowers. Uh-huh. There's a shamrock on It's almost a Paddy day. Yes. One of my favorite holidays. Don't drop it this time.
00:06:55
Jeff Rogers
The pressure's on. I mean, you drop it every time.
00:07:01
Jeff Rogers
You didn't drop it. It's your turn, oh lady. Okay. God, okay. That is going so nervous. I don't know if I could tell.
00:07:12
Jeff Rogers
All right. Samantha. Let's do it. My paper is upside down. Now we'll turn it right side up. It's like those drunk tests where they ask you to say the alphabet backwards. I
Atrocities of Unit 731
00:07:22
Jeff Rogers
felt... okay
00:07:27
Jeff Rogers
warning this story has every kind of um horrible thing you can discuss in humanity it has um there's talk of rape human experimentation ah brutal stuff murder so just to say Anything bad, if you can't or don't feel like doing that right now, take care of yourself and then come back.
00:07:57
Jeff Rogers
Fast forward through my story. Because mine's not dark. Yeah. so and So what do you know this means for me this week is I do this horrible story, which was a request.
00:08:07
Jeff Rogers
This one was a request. Kimberly. And ah so next week I will come back with something... Super rainbows and butterflies. Redemption. Yeah.
00:08:19
Jeff Rogers
Okay.
00:08:22
Jeff Rogers
A horrible story. You're doing great. Thank you. Okay. So but these are quotes from a book and the book I will have listed on the show notes and the sources. Okay.
00:08:35
Jeff Rogers
So the man knew that it was over for him, so he didn't struggle when they let him into the room and tied him down. But when I picked up the scalpel, that, well, that was when he started screaming. I cut him open from chest to stomach, and he screamed terribly.
00:08:50
Jeff Rogers
His face was all twisted in agony. He made this unimaginable sound. He was screaming so horribly. But then it finally stopped.
00:09:01
Jeff Rogers
This was all in a day's work for other surgeons, but it really left an impression on me because it was my first time. Infection of venereal disease by injection was abandoned, and the researchers researchers started forcing the prisoners into sexual acts with each other.
00:09:18
Jeff Rogers
Four or five unit scientists, dressed in white lab coats, so with only eyes and mouth visible, the rest of their body was covered, handled the tests. A male and a female, one infected with syphilis, would be brought together in a cell and forced to have sex with each other.
00:09:34
Jeff Rogers
It was made clear that anyone resisting would be shot. One of the former researchers said that one day he had a human experiment scheduled, but there was still time to kill.
00:09:46
Jeff Rogers
So he and another unit member took the keys to the cells and opened one that housed a Chinese woman. One of the unit members raped her. The other member took the keys and opened it another cell.
00:09:57
Jeff Rogers
There was a Chinese woman in there who had been forced into a frostbite experiment. She had several fingers missing, and her bones were black with gangrene. He was about to rape her anyway, but then he saw that her sex organ was infected, with pus oozing from the surface.
00:10:15
Jeff Rogers
He gave up the idea, left and locked the door behind him, and went on to do his experimental work. In 1943, I intended a poison gas test held in this unit's test facilities.
00:10:30
Jeff Rogers
A glass wall chambered about 97 square feet and six and a half feet high was used. Inside of it was a Chinese man who was blindfolded with his eyes tied around the post behind him.
00:10:42
Jeff Rogers
The mustard gas was atomized and as the gas filled the chamber, the man went into a violent coughing convulsion and began to suffer excruciating pain. More than 10 doctors and technicians were present.
00:10:54
Jeff Rogers
After I watched for about 10 minutes, I couldn't stand it anymore and left the area. I understand that other types of gases were also tested there. This is the horrifying story of a covert biological and chemical warfare research and development unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World world world War two The unit's research focused on the effects of diseases such as bubonic plague and anthrax.
00:11:24
Jeff Rogers
It included vivisection, exposure to extreme temperatures. Tens of thousands suffered and died as a result. This is the story of Unit 731.
00:11:36
Jeff Rogers
Have you heard of this? No. No. I'm not pleased. So the Holocaust stands out as one of the most, if not the most, horrific and disturbing events in human history, but there were other examples during that time of when human beings did heinous things, and today's story is one of those examples.
00:11:55
Jeff Rogers
And Imperial Japan did this under the name Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department. Sounds so lovely, right? And with a name like that, it would seem like they were fighting the good fight.
00:12:06
Jeff Rogers
This was a unit that used human beings, both men and women, young and old, from newborn to elderly. And honestly, when I think of World War two I think about Europe. Because that's kind of what we were taught in school, right? Well, except, yeah.
00:12:20
Jeff Rogers
Yeah, I mean, 1939, Germany started the invasions. and But on Asia, on the continent of Asia, this had been going on for a while. Brief history, Japanese invaded Manchuria in 1931.
00:12:35
Jeff Rogers
Manchuria is a historical region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China and parts of the modern-day Russia Far East. The name Manchuria derives from Manchu of Japanese origin.
00:12:49
Jeff Rogers
japanese Japan annexes the area and sets up like a puppet government, right? So Japan decided to build Unit 731 in Manchuria because the occupation not only gave the Japanese an advantage of separating the research station from their island, but it also gave them access to many Chinese individuals that they wanted to use for test subjects.
00:13:10
Jeff Rogers
They viewed the Chinese as no-cost assets and hoped this would give them a competitive advantage in biological warfare. Most of the victims were Chinese, but the victims were also from different nationalities.
00:13:24
Jeff Rogers
ah These facilities contained more than just medical research and experimentation areas. They also included spaces for detaining victims, essentially functioning as a prison. The research and experimentation rooms were constructed around the detention area, allowing researchers to conduct their daily work while monitoring patients.
00:13:44
Jeff Rogers
Founded in 1936, Unit expanded to include staff members, structures, the capacity to detain more than prisoners concurrently for experimental purposes So it's China, 1937, 1938. Things are getting darker and darker because of the events that happened in Nanjing, China at that time.
00:14:10
Jeff Rogers
If you don't know what that is, don't Google that. It is called literally the Rape of Nanjing or the Nanjing Massacre. Honestly, that was some of the worst shit that I've ever read. And it was kind of in connection to this in the book. It kind of talks about this as well as that. That's some dark stuff.
00:14:33
Jeff Rogers
It was basically the mass murder of Chinese civilians by Imperial Japanese Army. um So like I said, in 1931, Japan invaded Manchuria and there was an army unit but army unit named Army Epidemic Prevention Research Laboratory.
00:14:49
Jeff Rogers
I really think this kind of started as something like not horrible, and it was something for public health, right? So they were protecting Japanese soldiers from chemical attacks. That's how they started. and however their mind, they were doing a good thing. yeah likekes But in a Surgeon General,
00:15:10
Jeff Rogers
she e the chief medical officer for the Imperial Japanese Navy, was put in charge of the unit. And this was a horrible human being. He was in charge of all things to come.
00:15:22
Jeff Rogers
Bear that in mind. There he formed a secret club or a secret subgroup under the name Togo Unit. Togo was masked with investigating and developing bio and chemical warfare from the Zongma Fortress.
00:15:36
Jeff Rogers
and This was once a tiny village of about 300 homes that the Japanese burned to the ground, leaving a single large building. This building became the headquarters for the Togo unit. The Japanese then constructed a prison camp with an electric fence at the top of the wall that went around the camp.
00:15:55
Jeff Rogers
They built a moat, a drawbridge, and a lot of other buildings inside of the complex. There were also things like barracks, dining halls, and lab warehouses and prison cells.
00:16:06
Jeff Rogers
All built by slave labor are common criminals or bandits or anti-Japanese partisans or political prisoners. They were all forced to wear blinders so they couldn't see what was actually being built, or they couldn't get an idea of what was going on.
00:16:21
Jeff Rogers
So they have their prisoners. They called the prisoners Murata, and that is the Japanese word for log. And they would call the facility a wood, like a wood mill.
00:16:34
Jeff Rogers
So Murata, log, they would use that to say things like, how many logs fell today? Or how many logs did you take down? Completely dehumanizing them. Solid.
00:16:47
Jeff Rogers
The Japanese began rounding up the prisoners, mainly Chinese but also Russian expats living in China. They were all brought to the Zongma fortress. Initially treated really well. I mean, even gave them booze.
00:17:00
Jeff Rogers
All this was before the experiment began. Because the experiment, it was vile. They wanted to like get them to a healthy level. That is the reason this. So they can be at their at their peak health and then see how the diseases affected them.
00:17:17
Jeff Rogers
Truly the darkness of like, we're going to treat you really well only to do horrific shit to you. um
00:17:26
Jeff Rogers
It involved scientists testing the effects of everything from bubonic plague, cholera, starvation, water deprivation, frostbite, and weapons. But in 1934, 40 of these people escaped.
00:17:38
Jeff Rogers
There was a heavy rain, an electric fence stopped working, and they made a run for it. Ten were immediately killed. several Several of them were taken back to the facility, and I'm sure they suffered.
00:17:49
Jeff Rogers
Sixteen got away, and they let the word out that that was not a log mill. Now the secret of torture was out. Zhongma was closed 1935.
Experiments of Unit 731
00:18:01
Jeff Rogers
But don't you worry, because the following year in the district of Ping Feng, the Togo unit had a shakeup and they came under the new military jewish jurisdiction of the Imperial Army. They were divided into two units. However, this is when they became known as the e Epidemic Prevention Department. But in August of 1940, it was referred to as the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Project of the Kwantong Army.
00:18:27
Jeff Rogers
But it was also called Unit 731. It was composed of scientists, researchers, doctors, nurses, medics, and bacteriologists. They would even publish their work in peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals.
00:18:43
Jeff Rogers
They failed to mention that they were indeed doing experiments on humans, but calling them monkeys or logs. There were eventually many of these units around China, including Beijing.
00:18:55
Jeff Rogers
Unit 1644 in Nanjing, Unit Unit Singapore, but the main location was Unit It was about 2.3 square miles and included about 150 buildings or factories used to produce chemical or biological agents.
00:19:15
Jeff Rogers
And this particular unit could produce about 66 pounds of bubonic plague in just a few days. That's so just wow. That's good for them. Something to be proud of.
00:19:26
Jeff Rogers
I can't even wrap my brain around that. Can you? No. 66 pounds of bubonic plague in just days. Reports state that the unit had about 4,500 containers used to raise fleas, six cauldrons to produce chemicals, and 800 large containers to produce biological agents.
00:19:46
Jeff Rogers
Life expectancy there for people being experimented on was two months, but some survived for about 12 months. The ones who survived a little longer were more likely pregnant women who the Japanese wanted to deliver the baby just so that they could test some of the disease diseases on infants.
00:20:05
Jeff Rogers
To be very clear, every single person who came into Unit 731 as a prisoner died in there. Yashimura Hisato a physiologist in Unit 731, had a special interest in hypothermia, and he used human subjects as test reactions to frostbite.
00:20:25
Jeff Rogers
Hisato routinely submerged prisoners' limbs in a tub of water filled with ice and then held them there until the limbs were frozen solid and a coat of ice was formed over the skin. He timed the victims to check on how long it took for the human bodies to develop frostbite.
00:20:42
Jeff Rogers
According to one of the witnesses to the frostbite testing, the limbs made a sound like plane like a plank of wood when struck with a cane. And then he tried different methods for rapidly thawing.
00:20:54
Jeff Rogers
of the frozen appendage such such as dousing the limbs with hot water, fire, open fire, or leaving the subject untreated overnight to see how long it took for a prisoner's blood to thaw out.
00:21:07
Jeff Rogers
Unit 731 was able to scientifically prove that the best treatment for frostbite was to immerse it in water a bit warmer than 100 degrees, but never more than 122 degrees.
00:21:19
Jeff Rogers
science Unit 731 employed gruesome tactic tactics to secure specimens of select body organs. If Ishii or one of his co-workers wished to do the research on the human brain, they would then order the guards to find them a useful sample.
00:21:36
Jeff Rogers
A prisoner would be taken from a cell. Guards would hold him, while another guard would smash the victim's head open with an axe. His brain would be extracted off of the off to the past pathologist it would go, and then to the crematorium,
00:21:50
Jeff Rogers
for the usual disposal. That's just one thing. Vivisection is the practice of performing operations on the living while they are completely alive, for the purpose of experimentation or scientific research.
00:22:05
Jeff Rogers
Vivisection was performed in Unit 731 without anesthesia to study the operations of living systems. It was performed on thousands of victims, mostly Chinese Communist prisoners, as well as children and elderly farmers.
00:22:22
Jeff Rogers
They were infected with diseases diseases such as cholera and the plague, and then they had their organs removed for examination before they died in order to study the effects of the disease without decomposition, after death.
00:22:36
Jeff Rogers
Prisoners had limbs amputated in order to study blood loss. Limbs removed were sometimes reattached to the opposite side of the victim's body. Some prisoners had their stomachs surgically removed and their esophagus was reattached to their intestines.
00:22:51
Jeff Rogers
Part of their organs, such as the brain, lungs, liver, were removed from the other parts. Imperial Japanese Army Surgeon Ken Yuasa said that practicing vivisection on human subjects was widespread even outside of 731, estimating at least 1,000 Japanese personnel were involved in the practice on mainland China.
00:23:13
Jeff Rogers
Yuasa said that when he performed vivisections on captives, they were, quote, all for practice rather than research, and that practices were, quote, routine among Japanese doctors and stationed in China during the war.
00:23:29
Jeff Rogers
Subjects were also used to study the progress of gangrene. They would have their limbs amput amputated and, like I said, reattached to the other side of the body, while others had their limbs crushed or frozen or had their circulation cut off.
00:23:44
Jeff Rogers
After the body was used up and exhausted, they were normally shot or killed by lethal injection. Unit 731 also studied bayonets, swords, knives, and the use of ah with the use of other prisoners.
00:23:56
Jeff Rogers
They also studied flamethrowers on both covered and exposed skin. They also set up gas chambers to test subjects with blister agents and nerve gas. They did prolonged x-ray exposure, which sterilized and kills killed thousands of testing subjects.
00:24:14
Jeff Rogers
The Imperial Japanese Army was interested in the symptoms and treatment of syphilis. Male prisoners infected with syphilis were ordered to rape female and male prisoners to monitor the onset of the disease.
00:24:27
Jeff Rogers
More rapes were arranged until the exposure established infection. There were human subjects locked up and deprived of food and water to learn how long humans could survive.
00:24:39
Jeff Rogers
In order to study crash injuries, heavy so heavy um things were dropped onto like bounded prisoners. The effects of G-force on pilots and falling paratroopers were studied by loading humans into large centrifuge and spun them at a higher and higher speed until they lost consciousness or died.
00:25:02
Jeff Rogers
which usually happened between 10 and 15 Gs. Female prisoners of childbearing age were forcibly impregnated so that weapon and trauma experiments could be done on them.
00:25:15
Jeff Rogers
Pregnant test subjects were infected with various diseases, exposed to chemical weapons, crush crash injuries, bullet wounds, and shrapnel injuries. They then were opened up and the effects of the fetus were studied.
00:25:28
Jeff Rogers
Pregnant women with syphilis was of special interest to researchers of Unit 731. By 1939, Ishii had condensed his laboratory discoveries to six potent pathogens, anthrax, typhoid, paratyphoid, glanders, dysentery, and plague-infected human fleas.
00:25:50
Jeff Rogers
These agents were robust enough to ignite epidemics and considerable magnitude and resilient to aerial dispersal. This marked the initiation of the latter phase of Ishii's elaborate scheme, conducting field trials through military expeditions on unsuspecting civilians.
00:26:11
Jeff Rogers
aiming to devise a method of dissemination that would effectively spread the pathogens and optimal concentrations for maximum devastation. His experiments involved the development of biodegradable bombs housing live rats and fleas infected with diseases like bubonic plague.
00:26:30
Jeff Rogers
designed to explode mid-air, ensuring the safe descent of the infected creatures to the ground. Additionally, he deployed birds and bird feathers contaminated with anthrax from low-lying low-flying aircraft.
00:26:45
Jeff Rogers
Plague-infected fleas bred in the labs of Unit 731 and Unit 1644 were spread by low-flying airplanes over Chinese cities 1940 and 1941.
00:26:57
Jeff Rogers
These operations killed thousands with bubonic plague epidemics. An expedition to Nanjing involved spreading typhoid and paratyphoid germs into wells, marshes, and houses of the city, as well as infusing them in snacks distributed to locals.
00:27:17
Jeff Rogers
Epidemics broke out shortly after, to the elation of many of the researchers who concluded that paratyphoid fever was, quote, the most effective of the pathogens.
00:27:29
Jeff Rogers
They would give the wrong blood transfusion to people. They would give animal blood to people. and They would also inject the human body with seawater. um Quote, it was said that a small number of these poor men and women with children who became maratha, or logs, were also mummified alive in total dehydration experiments.
00:27:48
Jeff Rogers
They sweated themselves to death under the hot the heat of several hot, dry fans. As death, the corpses would only weigh one-fifth the normal body weight.
00:28:00
Jeff Rogers
As the
Japanese Biological Warfare Plans
00:28:01
Jeff Rogers
situation in Japan became increasingly desperate in 1945, Ishii developed a plan codenamed Operation Cherry Blossoms at Night,
00:28:11
Jeff Rogers
you heard of that which was finalized in March of 1944. The plan called for five new submarines, each with three float planes, to cross the Pacific and launch the aircraft with plague flee bombs in one-way missions to crash into the United States West Coast, San Diego as a matter of fact, as the first target.
00:28:37
Jeff Rogers
Japan's plan was to do this in October of 1945 to drop the bubonic plague on San Diego. That was their plan in 1945. But in August of that year, we bombed ah Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
00:28:56
Jeff Rogers
um Unit 731 was abandoned and the fatalities in manchuria were just are sorry the facilities in Manchuria were destroyed with a lot of the information. As for the prisoners who remained in camps, they were swiftly executed and their bodies were exposed of.
00:29:11
Jeff Rogers
When Americans arrived in Japan, they heard the rumors of this. It was only when the Soviet Union got involved that the secrets surrounding Unit 731 were shared with the you with General Douglas MacArthur.
00:29:24
Jeff Rogers
And he was the one tasked with helping rebuild Japan. And there were decisions that needed to be made over like possible prosecutions of what he was hearing about, right?
00:29:37
Jeff Rogers
General MacArthur basically, and a roundabout way, gave a blanket immunity to those involved in Unit 731 in exchange for sole ownership of the information that they had learned.
00:29:51
Jeff Rogers
In the trials for the war crimes committed by the Japanese, there was just one mention of chemical poisoning in China and nothing about the worst, most macabre human experimentation unit during the war.
00:30:08
Jeff Rogers
The Soviets, they were not about this. They wanted the Japanese people, that's at least the card they played. that's That's what they were showing. They were not about this. They wanted real punishment for these people.
00:30:22
Jeff Rogers
They wanted the Japanese people who carried out the activities in Unit 731 to be held accountable. Or did they? They had a trial known as the
00:30:32
Jeff Rogers
hello Khabarovsk war crimes trial, 12 men were convicted of war crimes and sentenced from two years to 25 years in a Siberian labor camp. Some people kind of think they got what they deserved.
00:30:46
Jeff Rogers
Others definitely did not think that the Japanese... war crime people got what they deserved. And the shit that went down in Unit 731 was horrific. Their sentences were not on par with the crimes that they committed, most people can agree on.
00:31:01
Jeff Rogers
As soon as most of them would find their way, as soon as the trial was over, most of them would find their way right back to Japan. um So, I mean, when Like when reading this, it's sort of clear that the United States and the Soviet Union, then the Soviet Union, kind of let the people off the hook yeah for this Unit 731.
Revelations and Silence of Unit 731
00:31:25
Jeff Rogers
Decades and decades go by in silence. Then around the year 2000, people in Japan and around the world started talking about it. And in 2018, Professor Nishiyama of the National Archives of Japan released the names of 2,607 members of Unit of the war.
00:31:47
Jeff Rogers
all of whom had lived freely since the end of the war many of whom had since died apart from the 12 men who went through the trial in 1949 in russia the rest had lived free lives and many had illusrious illustrious careers In 2002, at an international symposium on crimes of bacteriological warfare in China, the number of people deemed to have been killed through Japanese chemical or biological warfare programs was estimated 580,000 human beings.
00:32:25
Jeff Rogers
This does not include those who were killed outside the walls of Unit 731. is believed inside walls of Unit 731, at least 3,000 men and women and children were experimented on killed Unit 731. it is believed that inside the walls of unit seven thirty one at least three thousand men and women and children were experimented on and killed in unit seven thirty one Every person who was a prisoner in Unit 731 died there.
00:32:48
Jeff Rogers
And it wasn't just the Chinese people. There were Russian people, Korean people, along with Mongols, Americans, British, and French. I think it's fascinating and terrifying, the things that happened in World War II. Some of it Like, a lot of it was just the blind torture, right?
00:33:06
Jeff Rogers
A lot of what we've studied was blind torture, mass genocide. and The stuff that happened in Unit 731 was a specific torture that managed to further scientific understanding in a very fucked up way. and That's a delicate way of saying it.
00:33:26
Jeff Rogers
That is the story 731. Jesus. Jesus.
00:33:30
Jeff Rogers
jesus
00:33:33
Jeff Rogers
horrific and true. How you doing? I don't really have a lot of words.
00:33:45
Jeff Rogers
That's horrible. Yeah. I did not know, like i started reading this and I was like, what the fuck am I reading? but So it would be ignorant to say that, you know, horrible things didn't happen.
00:34:04
Jeff Rogers
all throughout the years, right? For the purpose of scientific advancement. I mean, we have our own black marks as well. Oh, I mean,
00:34:16
Jeff Rogers
yeah ah the good old US of and the then Soviet Union basically swept that shit under the rug, maybe, as a way of, like,
00:34:33
Jeff Rogers
Each having the information that was learned. Taking it and doing their own versions of it. Yeah. Tell me something good.
00:34:46
Jeff Rogers
Okay. I need some alcohol after that story. So next week I'm going to be back with something. Bright and shiny. Yes, I'm already excited about it. That's good.
00:34:57
Jeff Rogers
yeah sir have to have light at the end of that dark tunnel and hopefully it's not a train.
Story of Mildred Dresselhaus
00:35:05
Jeff Rogers
Jesus. Okay, well, mine is short and sweet. Okay. um Like you. I mean, minus the sweet part. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah.
00:35:16
Jeff Rogers
No, you're not wrong. No one would disagree with you. um This is the story of the Queen of Carbon. it As this is still Women's History Month, figured I would share a story about a woman who changed our world.
00:35:34
Jeff Rogers
I love it already. yeah i Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, there might be some people that have fast forwarded completely through my story and now they're tuning in for the first time. Welcome back.
00:35:46
Jeff Rogers
Welcome back. glad you came back. Yeah. Don't ever listen to that story. um However, I do need to preface this story with um
00:36:00
Jeff Rogers
I don't think of myself as an unintelligent person. but I was reading the many different articles and and the biography and all the the sources that I used for this.
00:36:12
Jeff Rogers
And there were so many moments where i was i would read a whole paragraph and go, what the fuck was that? Because this woman is an absolute next level. And I know that there's people out there. I know that I know people that would read about her and be able to not only say all of the really big and absurd words, but also understand what they mean.
00:36:36
Jeff Rogers
I'm not one of them, so I dumbed this down dig it to to a Sam level. And she's called the Queen of Carbon. Okay, I'm here for it. Mildred Dresselhaus was born Mildred Spywak and raised by recently immigrated Eastern European Polish-Jewish parents in a dangerous, multiracial, low-income neighborhood in the Bronx.
00:37:01
Jeff Rogers
She went to public school where academics were not the priority. At home, however, she was encouraged to learn all that she could. She was a younger sister to a brother that was a child prodigy in both academics and violin.
00:37:14
Jeff Rogers
She attended a music school and was introduced to a different caliber group of people. They told her about a high school with high academic standing. Hunter College required an examination for acceptance, for which she studied extremely hard.
00:37:28
Jeff Rogers
She passed the entrance exam and started at the high school with the intention of becoming a school teacher.
00:37:35
Jeff Rogers
While at Hunter, she was encouraged by her physics teacher, Nobel Prize winner Roslyn Yalo, to pursue a career as a physicist, which she did. She excelled in school.
00:37:48
Jeff Rogers
She received a Fulbright sco fellowship to attend the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge University from 1951 to 1952. In 53, she completed her master's degree at Radcliffe College.
00:38:01
Jeff Rogers
She continued her education and as a... Also the same college of 01 Virginia Hall. Radcliffe, baby. All these women. Yeah. As a 22-year-old, she started her program to receive a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1958.
00:38:19
Jeff Rogers
While there, she studied under renowned physicist and Nobel laureate Enrico Fermi. Her PhD thesis was on the microwave properties of a superconductor in a magnetic field.
00:38:32
Jeff Rogers
yeah And her research led to questions about existing theories. So cool. She returned to Hunter to teach for a semester until she received a research position at the Bronx Veterans Hospital.
00:38:47
Jeff Rogers
She did postdoc work at Cornell University where her husband, Gene, was teaching. In 1960, she and Jean both accepted positions at the linkn Lincoln Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT.
00:39:03
Jeff Rogers
Damn. It was written in the stars. It gets so much more. Yeah. So much more. Because of the emergence of the space program, she had plenty of opportunity to work and research.
00:39:17
Jeff Rogers
She was asked by MIT to change research fields and began her rewarding career with the new field of magneto optics using semi-metals instead of using semiconductors like many others, most others in the field.
00:39:33
Jeff Rogers
Right? This is at the point when I'm in a conversation with somebody where I i make the smiling face and i'm like, uh-huh. Yeah. It's so much worse. Then I turn to you and say, I have no idea what they're talking about.
00:39:44
Jeff Rogers
Okay. Well, this is where really this is where i really dumbed it down because there were words on these articles where I was like, what? Uh-huh.
00:39:56
Jeff Rogers
Yeah. Uh-huh. Yeah. After having children, she became a professor of electrical engineering at MIT in 1967 as the Abby Rockefeller Mousy visiting professor.
00:40:12
Jeff Rogers
In 1968, she became a tenured professor in physics. By 1973, she had branched out to study and work in the nano world.
00:40:23
Jeff Rogers
Then in 1974, she added research on the vibrational spectra of donor and acceptor compounds. She began synthesizing graphene and intercalate super lattices with single, single double, and triple layers.
00:40:38
Jeff Rogers
In 1973, she also received the Carnegie Foundation grant to encourage the inclusion of women in traditionally male-dominated fields of study. Hell yeah. In 1980, she teamed up with Marino Bo Endo to research carbon fibers to control transport properties.
00:40:57
Jeff Rogers
By 1985, she became the first ever female institute professor. Institute professor is the highest title awarded to a faculty at MIT. In 1990, the French and U.S. Navy became came to her because of their interest in thermoelectricity for energy harvesting.
00:41:16
Jeff Rogers
In 1991, she and two other MIT professors researched and wrote a paper on single-wall carbon nanotubes using hexagonal structures.
00:41:27
Jeff Rogers
For many years, the conclusion from their research was controversial, but it was eventually widely accepted in 1998. She spoke at international conferences, Department of Defense conferences, and continued teaching.
00:41:41
Jeff Rogers
She had a 57-year career MIT. 57 years. Damn. fifty seven years She invented and patented the super lattice structures for thermoelectric devices, which laid the foundation for today's lithium-ion batteries, which are used to power many things, including cell phones and backup power for emergency medical equipment.
00:42:04
Jeff Rogers
She served as President of the American Physical Society, the first female President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Chair of the Governing Board of the American Institute of Physics, Treasurer of the National Academy of Sciences, and Director of Science in the Department of Energy during Bill Clinton's presidency.
00:42:25
Jeff Rogers
She received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the National Medal of Science, the Enrico Fermi Award, the Cavalry Prize, the Heinz Award, so oristed metal the the Vannevar Bush Award, and the IEEE Medal of Honor.
00:42:43
Jeff Rogers
I mean, it's got three E's. It's probably something So big. Something having to do with electrical engineers. i don't know. It's got three E's in there. IEEE. Right. Eee!
00:42:55
Jeff Rogers
She was also inducted into the United States National Inventors Hall of Fame. Yeah. and she died in 2017. Oh. But she left such a legacy behind. And it was so cool reading about her.
00:43:11
Jeff Rogers
ah wish that I was smarter so that I could actually understand the complexities of it. But some of those words, I was reading them and I was like... Like some of the sentences you dumbed down, I was even like, so okay, smile. Yeah.
00:43:27
Jeff Rogers
But I do know that there's people, I mean, my the The men in my family are those absurdly smart individuals who they'll hear this and kind of think, oh, yeah, I know what that is. I'm like, cool.
00:43:40
Jeff Rogers
I don't care. Yeah. I do. but do care. But, um yeah, she was kind of a rock star. and Yeah, she was badass. You should look up a picture of her. Mildred Dresselhaus.
00:43:53
Jeff Rogers
Mildred Dresselhouse. Okay. Look at a picture of her. She's just cute as a little button. She's this tiny little... What a force. What a force. Oh, where did you find that? um It was on
00:44:06
Jeff Rogers
You know how when you go to a Google homepage, there's like the pictures that pop up and you can click on them and it'll... Oh, yeah, yeah, So a couple... Last week or whatever it was...
00:44:18
Jeff Rogers
when you clicked on that, it actually took you to a whole page of women in history. um And you could branch out and do. I mean, you could pick any of those women probably in there. Yeah.
00:44:31
Jeff Rogers
And so I went specifically with the women in STEM, but there's also women in art, women in music, women in all sorts of things. But I don't know why I thought it was a good idea to go STEM, but I did.
00:44:45
Jeff Rogers
Branch out. Open your mind a little bit. and You know, the thing I can always... Okay, we may not have any of that going on for us, but the thing I've always said about emergency room nurses... that what we're crazy? Yo, we have the best stories at any given party.
00:45:01
Jeff Rogers
Yes, but you you hear... Okay, ay historically have... um
00:45:08
Jeff Rogers
not read The Room correctly oh many times. yeah I'm better at that now. i'm i'm better at that now I just avoid all things talk about work because you never know who's going to hear your story of the horrible trauma or the code that you ran. He stuck a what? Of his...
00:45:24
Jeff Rogers
And you're telling that at a dinner party and everyone's looking at you. And some people are finding it interesting, but other people were like, who is this savage that's sitting at the table? like Well, okay. So i don't I will usually only talk about that if I'm asked a specific question. And when people what I've learned over the many, many years of doing it is when people ask...
00:45:43
Jeff Rogers
what's the worst thing that you've seen is what they really mean is what's the craziest shit you can share with me? Like something crazy. They don't want to know the worst stuff an emergency room nurse has seen.
00:45:54
Jeff Rogers
They want to know like the off the wall. They'll do up the ass stories. are like Unique. But people like hearing that, though. And when the last time I was in Norway, and we were at somebody's house.
00:46:11
Jeff Rogers
And it was me and Dad and Janet, Lena and Ger. And God, I can't remember the other two people.
00:46:24
Jeff Rogers
Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. It's okay.