Kaimingjie germ weapon attack

The Kaimingjie germ weapon attack was a Japanese biological warfare bacterial germ strike against Kaimingjie, an area of the port of Ningbo in the Chinese province of Zhejiang in October 1940, during the Second Sino-Japanese War.

The attack was a joint Unit 731 and Unit 1644 endeavour. Bubonic plague was the area of greatest interest to the doctors of these units. Six different plague attacks were conducted in China during the war.

Using airdropped wheat, corn, scraps of cotton cloth and sand infested with plague infected fleas, an outbreak was started that resulted in a hundred deaths, infections and mild to severe bodily mutilations. The area was evacuated and a 14-foot (4.3 m) wall was built around it to enforce a quarantine, then burned to the ground to eradicate the disease.

A later attack in 1942 on the same area by the two units led to the development of their final delivery system: airdropped ceramic bombs. Some work was conducted during the war with the use of liquid forms of the pathogen agents but the results were unsatisfactory for the researchers.

The attacks were formed on the research of units 731 and 1644. These units researched the effects of various chemicals and pathogens that had the potential to be used as biological weapons on soldiers and civilians. The aim of the development of these biological weapons was the use of the weapons to further expand the Japanese empire across Asia.

These units were arms of the Japanese top-secret biological weapons program. The program was headed by General Shirō Ishii. He devised the plans for the Kaimingjie germ weapon attack and played a major role in the Japanese biological weapons program, specifically through fundraising.