Architects of ABC weapons for the Japanese empire: Microbiologists and theoretical physicists

The countries of the Japanese empire, like the Allied and other Axis nations, joined the race to develop atomic, biological and chemical (ABC) weapons during the Second World War. Japanese ABC weapons projects received substantial support from the government of the Japanese empire, with members of the imperial family taking a lot of interest in the programs. 1 We see different motivations for participation between the scientists-physicists and biologists-involved in ABC weapons development. Similarly, the fate and attitudes of these scientists at the end of the war and during the post-war period differed depending on wartime rank, where they were at the end of the war, and whether they were physicists or biologists. Interestingly, their moral values as they pertained to their wartime scientific activities appear to have remained near constant at an individual level throughout the trans-war period. In other words, imperial wartime rhetoric and pressure failed to change these scientists' pre-war moral standards.