The Story of Mukden

Prelude

As a small country with limited space, Japan felt the lack of resources and croplands as their population grew. To solve these problems, it turned toward the closest land mass with good farmland and raw materials, NE China and SE Russia.

As the west and Russia began to move into China with the Trans-Siberian Railway and trade, Japan decided it needed to act. Russia and Japan fought over the rich resources of Liaoning Province in the late 1800s.

By the 1920s, Japan was making detailed plans to take over NE China.

They stationed troops near the boarder, made frequent incursions, and then on September 18, 1931, created an incident that led them to invade NE China.

The Chinese fought the Japanese alone for 10 years. They were brutalized, enslaved, and used for medical experiments, starting at a facility near Shenyang.

Some think our POWs were also experimented on by the same doctors, others think they might have been the control group. We may never know.

Map showing the Japanese expansion in the Pacific W. W. II

McGibbon, I (ed), Oxford Companion to NZ Military History (OUP, Auckland, 2000

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