Shunji Sato

Shunji Satō (佐藤 俊二) was a Japanese physician during the first half of the 20th century and a major general in the Imperial Japanese Army.

From January 1941 he was assigned to command the Epidemic Prevention and Water Purification Department under the Japanese Central China Area Army. While the public mission of this department was to prevent the spread of disease and monitor water supply, it was also assigned the mission of manufacturing and testing biological weapons. In August, he was promoted to major general, and from November 1941 commanded Unit 8604 of the Japanese Southern China Area Army, a biological warfare unit that operated in Southern China. From March 1944, he was reassigned as Chief of Medical Service of the IJA 5th Army based in Manchukuo. Captured by the Red Army during the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, he was convicted of war crimes and sentenced to 20 years' incarceration in the Khabarovsk War Crime Trials. However, in 1956, with the restoration of diplomatic relations between Japan and the Soviet Union, he was freed and repatriated to Japan. He died in 1977.