Documents of 1945 U.S. POW Vivisection Incident on Exhibit

   Tokyo, June 3 (Jiji Press)--Documents related to a 1945 U.S. prisoner-of-war vivisection incident are on exhibit until June 22 at the medical history museum of Kyushu University in the southwestern Japan city of Fukuoka, in hopes of promoting medical and peace education by sharing lessons from the past.
   In the incident, eight captured U.S. soldiers died after undergoing experimental surgeries at Kyushu Imperial University, the predecessor of Kyushu University, in the late stages of World War II.
   Doctor Toshio Tono, who witnessed the surgeries as a medical student at the time, collected related documents before he died at the age of 95 in 2021. His family donated about 30 of the documents to the university in 2024, and some of the donated documents are now on display.
   The documents include a floor plan of a school building in which the location of the anatomy laboratory where the surgeries were conducted is written by hand, as well as a copy of a suicide note left by a surgeon involved in the incident who committed suicide after being arrested.
   After the war ended, Tono was questioned by the WWII Allies as a witness to the incident. He also testified at the trials of those involved.

(2025/06/03-08:30)