In a corner of Meiji University’s Ikuta campus sits a small drab building. Well-maintained and completely non-descript it could be another classroom tucked away from the campus’ other towering facility. The only unusual thing about it is a large sign out front stating its history.

This is not a classroom but the last remaining laboratory of the Imperial Japanese Army Noborito Laboratory or 9^th Military Technical Research Institute, where army scientists developed weapons to be used in covert warfare during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

Covert warfare encompasses intelligence, counter-intelligence, espionage and sabotage, which brings to mind James Bond’s tools and weapons but it actually goes much further than that. Here it also includes the development of biological weapons, death rays, money counterfeiting and intercontinental balloon bombs. Its war by other means and Noborito did it all.

World War I had been a massive technological leap forward and the way that wars would be fought with technology was not lost on the Japanese observers sent to the Western Front.  So in 1919 the Army Scientific Laboratory was established as the Imperial Japanese Army’s research and development arm for new technologies. Ultimately 10 laboratories or institutes would be established under its umbrella over the decades leading up to World War II with each specializing in a different area of warfare.

The Noborito laboratory began in 1937 with 60 staffers and a few buildings, but by 1944 would balloon to 100 buildings and 1,000 staff, 75% of which was civilian. It drew some of Japan’s best technical minds from universities and was given the largest budget of all the army’s laboratories owing to the importance of its work in fighting the dual wars against America and China.

The largest scale project related to the war against America that was researched here was the firebombing of the American mainland. Though different in scope than its American counterpart it actually began before the first B-29 dropped bombs on Yawata in 1944. After the Doolittle Raid, itself a retaliatory strike, Japan wanted to strike back but lacking long-range bombers had to come up with an alternative strategy. America’s means of hitting Japan was unorthodox, putting land-based bombers on aircraft carriers, but not exactly innovative. Japan’s response would be completely outside of the box.

Back in 1933 the army experimented with the idea of using hot air balloons loaded with bombs to attack an enemy. The idea was shelved because it was impractical but a decade later the scientists at Noborito were charged with making it practical, in as much as relying on unguided hot air balloons to hopefully hit something far away can be.

Named Fusen Bakudan (“fire balloons”) or Fu-Go, these were 10-meter laminated washi paper coated in konnyaku glue balloons filled with hydrogen gas that carried a few bombs and used a complicated ballast system to keep it afloat. The idea was they would ride the jetstream thousands of miles from Japan to America and cause massive forest fires, burn farmlands or explode in cities and cause panic. It was an indiscriminate terror weapon in theory. Loading them with biological weapons, another area of Noborito research, was discussed but rejected for fear of retaliation in kind. While the Chinese possessed neither a biological weapons stockpile nor means to deploy it, the U.S. had both.

After requisitioning all the material necessary for the bombs it was then up to the high school girls of Japan to build these weapons. According to Tanaka Tetsuko, a Yamaguchi Girls’ High School student turned balloon maker, they fabricated the balloon’s paper surface inside the high school. Afterwards they were sent to the Kokura Arsenal, the intended target of the second atomic bomb, for around the clock balloon building. The girls were worked 12-14 hours a day, six days a week with high daily quotas to meet to keep production on track. Food was as minimal as rest.

To keep the night shifts invigorated pills were given to the girls, later Tanaka learned they were experimental drugs created by Kyushu Imperial University* to keep pilots alert, so it’s likely they were feeding teenagers Pervitin, a form of methamphetamine.

I never thought I would write this sentence but, they had to feed drugs to teenage girls to maintain production on paper balloons to firebomb America. This is possibly the most ludicrous yet tragic statement I have ever written.

More than 9,000 Fu-Go balloons were built and launched in late 1944 and 1945 but the project was a complete failure. No major fires broke out or damage was done, it’s only known casualties were a group of picnicking Sunday school children and a minister’s wife. A few hundred bombs harmlessly made it to the U.S. and Canada and were being found in the wilderness as late as 1955.

The museum has a model Fu-Go as well as sample balloon-making materials on display, which look rather fragile to be making such a long journey but that would probably be part of the reason so few arrived compared to the thousands sent.

The balloon bombs were also not the strangest idea that Noborito brought to life. That would probably be the death ray, or more precisely a device utilizing a beam of microwave energy to take out enemy aircraft. A team led by Prof. Tomonaga Shinichiro began working on it in 1939. The end product was a magnetron which could put out 100kW of power that could kill a rabbit at 1,000 yards but only if the rabbit stayed still for five minutes.

Not best known for this particular work, Tomonaga would later receive the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1965.

Noborito’s support for the war on China involved the research and development of poisons, chemical and biological weapons. While biological warfare against the Chinese is more often associated with the Kwantung Army Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department, better known as Unit 731, Noborito developed biological agents to be used against livestock and crops to deprive the Chinese of food to continue the fight. Noborito scientist also went to China to conduct toxin experiments on live prisoners at a hospital in Nanking.

Of the museum rooms only one is maintained as if in use, that’s a dark room believed to have been used for working with photosensitive chemicals. The laboratory building itself was dedicated to biological weapons development. Because the building passed through several hands before Meiji University its unknown if the furniture inside is from the army or was brought in later, though it does appear to be era appropriate.

The other major anti-Chinese Noborito operation was the counterfeit currency production conducted in what’s now an elementary school athletic field. After the fall of Hong Kong Japan seized a Koumintang mint in the city and shipped it to Noborito to print billions in counterfeit currency to both flood the market and to fund the war in China. It may not have staved off defeat for Japan, but post-war this destabilization of currency may have helped in the Republic of China’s downfall.

The more conventional clandestine warfare supported by Noborito was the development and production of espionage and sabotage tools for spies and guerillas. The lab created cameras, listening devices and even miniature bombs hidden in everyday objects, as well as practical items like water-proof wind resistant matches. Not many of these devices survive today and the most interesting pieces the museum has on display are wristwatches intended to be used as timers for explosives hidden in fake food cans.

Since the museum’s walls of information about this subject are in Japanese most of the information is lost on non-Japanese speakers without a translator on their phone and the patience to use it but the copious pictures are self-explanatory and the English handout goes step by step on the range of spy tech created here. These devices would become especially important when the Allies invaded and guerilla operations at home began.

As the war drew towards this inevitable conclusion the military began implementing plans for the nation’s last stand as American forces came ashore and swept across the Kanto Plain to seize Tokyo. The Matsushiro Daihonei, a massive bunker complex in the mountains of Matsushiro, Nagano Prefecture, would be the new national headquarters to lead the fight against invaders. Its location would be difficult to bomb and to attack by land, allowing the empire to hold out for as long as possible in the hopes that mounting casualties, both American and Japanese, would cause the U.S. to agree to favorable peace terms. The U.S. expected to take up to 4 million casualties and kill 5-10 million Japanese before the war was won and the Japanese believed that the sacrifice of 20 million citizens would guarantee their own victory.

Noborito would also make the move to Nagano and construction of a new facility there began in 1945. It was the capture of this facility in October 1945 that would lead the Americans back to Noborito and the work that had been done there, though they had little documentation to work with as after the Gyokuon-hoso (Jewel Voice Broadcast) of Aug. 15, 1945 Noborito staff members spent the next two weeks furiously burning all documents and counterfeit currency. Like Unit 731, Noborito staff members were not tried for war crimes in exchange for their research on biological warfare.

Years after the war had ended hundreds of water filtration units shipped to Nagano for the new Noborito lab were discovered. These along with other artifacts were brought back to Noborito and are now on display at the museum. I liked seeing these because they’re one of the more mundane but important parts of history, the incidentals that allow work to be done that aren’t usually seen on display.

After the war, several universities took over the laboratory until it came into the possession of Meiji University in 1950, who has kept the campus ever since. The laboratory’s history was pieced back together by local high school students, Meiji University, and locals, some of whom worked at the lab. The museum opened in 2010.

Though it’s a small museum, it’s extremely candid and packs in a lot about the work that was done here. The museum is entirely in Japanese, but we were given English language pamphlets and an English-speaking staff member was very helpful and answered all of our questions, helping us better understand the laboratory. I was surprised to learn that some aspects of the war I was already familiar with, like the balloon bombs, originated here.

The candidness surprised me. Except for the Yushukan, while most Japanese peace museums don’t deny crimes or negative actions taken by their military, they just don’t talk about it because it’s outside the scope of their missions which are usually narrowly defined to remembering a local installation or aspect of the war, like kamikazes. Here it’s about all they can talk about, which they do in the hopes that history is not repeated by acknowledging what Japan had done in the past so that people can learn from it.

Because of the nature of its research, museum artifacts are limited to those related to the physical buildings, personal awards and effects of staffers and small concealed devices for espionage and sabotage.

The museum is the last laboratory building standing, but there are a few other remnants of the old facility around campus. One is a bunker behind the laboratory that is believed to have held non-volatile chemicals and they’re not sure what another bunker behind a different building is for but it was used by the garden club for many years. I can only imagine what it would have been like going to school in this place in the 1950s, oblivious to what been done in my classroom just a few years before.

The most important remnant is a monument for the lab animals that died in testing. It was erected in 1943 and is proof that this lab existed as some had tried to claim that it did not and therefore didn’t do the things they did.

Locations can be found on handout map at the museum. If you visit, hopefully what I’ve put in this article will be useful and add to your trip. I combined information from displays, handouts, information I was given by staff, books and articles to help potential visitors appreciate what the museum has to offer and to pique interest in such an unusual museum.

For more unusual information and facts check out their Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Noboritoshiryoukan/

The museum is free and easy to get to, but please respect that it’s on an active college campus. The nearest train station is Ikuta Station and if using Google Maps you should be able to see the building on campus with a museum marker, there’s an entrance to the camps right behind it.

If coming by bus take the Odakyu Bus bound for the Main Gate of Meiji University (Meiji Daigaku Seimon Mae Yuki).

*Kyushu Imperial University was also the university that carried out medical experiments on live prisoners from a downed B-29, killing them all. These included removing lungs without anesthesia and replacing the victim’s blood with seawater. Today Kyushu University’s medical museum has a display board about the incident.

Defunct Imperial Japanese Army Noborito Laboratory Museum for Education in Peace

1 Chome-1 Higashimita, Tama Ward, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture 214-0033

044-934-7993

http://www.meiji.ac.jp/noborito/index.html

References
Japan at War by Haruko Taya Cook & Theodore F. Cook

Secret Weapons of World War II by William Yenne

The Curious History of Japan’s Balloon Bomb Attack on America by Ross Coen
http://www.ralphmag.org/IE/fu-go.html

Japan’s World War II Balloon Bomb Attacks on North America by Robert C. Mikesh
http://www.sil.si.edu/smithsoniancontributions/AnnalsofFlight/pdf_lo/SAOF-0009.pdf