Pardon the sensational heading, but it was the first thing that ran through my head as I read this gem from Citizen Historian. Jack Chew, a history graduate from NUS, writes about Oka 9420 – the codename assigned to Singapore as part of a secret biological weapons programme by the Japanese during World War II.

The surprise? Singapore’s role in Japan’s infamous biological weapons programme before and during the Second World War. The fact that Japan had a biological weapons programme during the war has been widely-known, primarily through various Chinese-produced documentaries, and the Unit 731 Museum located near Harbin, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang – which brings to life the various grisly details of vivisections, frost bite experiments, exposure to pathogens on life human subjects. However, Japanese military scientists’ activities in Singapore have been largely unheard of.

Follow Jack as he chases the story about Oka 9420 as it leads him through the Medical Library and face-to-face with a former minister! And there is an unexpected moral to the story too:

I learned that it does not hurt to try to seek out interviews with individuals no matter how important and highly-placed they might be. The crucial thing perhaps is that we should always try to convince our prospective interviewees of the seriousness and sincerity of our requests. I hope that by sharing my experience here, other hobbyist and serious historians might be similarly encouraged to pursue their interests without regard for preconceived notions of what is do-able and what is not.

Read about Chasing a ‘Dead’ Lead.

Tags: Oka 9420, World War II, Japanese biological weapons, Jack Chew, Othman bin Wok