The most upsetting, nightmare-inducing book I've read this year is A Plague Upon Humanity: The Hidden History of Japan's Biological Warfare Program, by Daniel Barenblatt.

It's not fiction, but the story of secret biological research conducted on the Chinese people of Manchuria during the 1930s, when Japan occupied the province. Even more chilling that what happened during the war is what didn't happen afterwards: no revelations, no punishment, no Nuremberg-style trials for the evil doctors.

There are websites devoted to Unit 731, some with gruesome pictures of the carnage that went on there. Here is one, maintained by a group advocating for all POWs and MIAs, of all wars.

The biological warfare was the brainchild of a Dr. Shiro Ishii, a man who dreamed big. His career and plans are outlined in the book; he convinced the army that other countries surely were conducting experiments in spreading disease. If Japan was not to be a victim, Japan had better do research of its own.

Ishii got carte blanche to recruit hundreds of medical personnel for his laboratories and compound in Manchuria. Unit 731, as it came to be known, was operated by doctors who believed in the racial inferiority of the Chinese. They stopped at nothing to satisfy their curiosity about the effects of diseases like bubonic plague and smallpox--including living vivisections. (The doctors said that anesthesia might affect accurate results.)

Started in 1936, Unit 731 eventually encompassed 150 buildings near Harbin, Manchuria--which the Japanese called Machukuo. An earlier compound/prison was abandoned when people escaped from it.

Once Nanking was attacked in 1937 and Japan was officially at war with China, planes dropped or sprayed disease on populations, trying various methods of infection. Plague-infested fleas worked well; and reports of bubonic plague outbreaks followed. Disease cultures were dropped in ponds, too, and infected animals were set lose.

In the reports that reached major newspapers in the late 1930s, accusations that poison gas was being used against both civilian and military targets were made by China. These charges were brought before League of Nations as well.

During the war, the Japanese worked on ways to use their experiments as weapons. Estimates of the numbers killed vary widely. Some claim as many as 200,000 people died in these experiments. It was definitely in the tens of thousands, and most of the victims were innocents: farmers, children, the aged.

Just when I thought the horrors that the book described couldn't get any worse, they did--chilling me in a different way.

When the war ended, and the atrocities became known--which took a bit of time--the US cut a deal. The army wanted the research and records of this biological research. General Douglas MacArthur granted immunity to Ishii and his large staff. Ishii maintained a low profile, and lived comfortably until dying of cancer at age 67. Many of the other doctors who worked in Unit 731 and other facilities went home and enjoyed great success as professors, ministers, and practicing doctors. They were never charged with any crimes, or made to answer for their actions.

It's only been in the last 25 years, since the early 1980s, that testimony and court cases have begun to emerge about Unit 731. Here is a 2007 article from the Daily Mail about witnesses who are finally coming forward.

What did the US do with all the reports and research they received in exchange for immunity? Perhaps the Americans only wanted to ensure that the research did not fall into the hands of the Soviet Union--that's certainly the excuse used.