Following that,
Japanese air machines sprayed bubonic plague over parts of China in
1941, spreading terror into the hearts and minds of the rural populace.
At least five separate instances were documented and as terrifying the
prospect of bacterial bombs were at the time, these attacks were deemed
ineffective. By now, the US became aware of the Japanese's efforts and
they decided to start their own program. The Japanese also experimented
on American POWs and the US apparently were informed of the testing
but did nothing.
Before their surrender,
Japanese forces released thousands of plague infested rats and upon
submitting defeat to the Americans, the American Military offered immunity
to members of Unit 731 (both the scientists and military personnel)
in exchange for information garnered from those experiments. Therefore,
in a way, the American CBW program is soaked in the blood of Americans
sent into a strange land and betrayed by their country.
The end of the second
world war ushered in a new era of global politics, where the real battles
were conducted neither in trenches nor on the battlefields of the Rhine
but in secret weapons labs and war rooms. The cold war had begun and
biological warfare was poised to become an integral part of this freezing
malice.