World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbaseThe No. 9 Army Technical Research Laboratory was established in the Noborito neighborhood of Tama-ku, Kawasaki, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan, not far from the Tama River which separated Kawasaki and Tokyo, in 1937. It was placed under the control of the Shinoda Research Section of the Japanese Army, which was created in 1927 under Captain Ryo Shinoda. The No. 9 laboratory, sometimes known as the Noborito laboratory because of its location, focused on unconventional warfare. Among its notable actions was the printing of an extremely large number of counterfeit Chinese currency in an attempt to damage the Chinese economy. Another notable project was the refinement of Fu-Go balloon bombs that were launched in Japan to target the United States mainland, using the relatively newly discovered jet stream to carry the balloons over the vast distance between the two countries. There were also teams investigating possible new chemical and biological weapons. At its peak, the laboratory employed 1,000 scientists and other various workers. After the war, this military laboratory was disbanded, and it was rumored that a number of its top scientists were hired by the United States during the early days of the Cold War, operating within the US base at Yokosuka further south for some years to come. In Apr 2010, the Museum for Education in Peace was established at the former No. 9 laboratory site, which was then on the grounds of the Ikuta campus of Meiji University.

No. 9 Army Technical Research Laboratory Interactive Map

No. 9 Army Technical Research Laboratory Timeline