CrosswordNewsletters
DAILY BEAST
  • Royalist
  • Cheat Sheet
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Entertainment
  • Media
  • Covid-19
  • Half Full
  • U.S. News
  • Scouted
  • Travel
World

Japan Dissected My Granddad Alive in World War II

War Crimes

Bob Bruner was a teen when he learned the word “vivisection.” Now a Japanese museum is shedding light on the monstrous wartime experiments on his grandfather and other U.S. POWs.

Michael Daly

Special Correspondent

Updated May. 22, 2020 2:00PM ET / Published Apr. 08, 2015 5:15AM ET 
BEAST INSIDE

Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast

From Japan comes word of a university medical museum with a new exhibit detailing vivisections conducted at the school on eight American airmen captured in the final days of World War II.

The so-called experiments performed on the living prisoners at the Kyushu University medical school included the removal of a whole lung, a stomach, and a liver, as well as pieces of brain.

The first of the unlucky eight was Staff Sergeant Teddy Ponczka of Pennsylvania, who had been stabbed with a bamboo spear during his capture. He must have assumed he would be receiving treatment for his wound when he was brought into an operating theater.

READ THIS LIST

DAILY BEAST
  • Royalist
  • Cheat Sheet
  • Politics
  • Crime
  • Entertainment
  • Media
  • Covid-19
  • Half Full
  • U.S. News
  • Scouted
  • Travel
  • Beast Inside
  • Crossword
  • Newsletters
  • Podcasts
  • About
  • Contact
  • Tips
  • Jobs
  • Advertise
  • Help
  • Privacy
  • Code of Ethics & Standards
  • Diversity
  • Terms & Conditions
  • Copyright & Trademark
  • Sitemap
  • Coupons
© 2021 The Daily Beast Company LLC