From Messenger to Tool of War: Imperial Japan, Military Pigeon Experiments and the "Instrumentalization" of Life (1919-1945).

This paper explores the military experiments conducted by the Imperial Japanese Army that were systematically conducted to research, train, and breed pigeons for use on the battlefield. It explores how the Japanese Army subjected military pigeons to severe cold and intense heat under natural conditions, and forced them to fly in various types of harsh weather. It also explores how in artificial or laboratory environments, the pigeons were subjected to extreme conditions involving poison gas, prolonged confinement, starvation, and suffocation to test the limits of their survivability. In the late stages of WWII, to reduce casualties among military pigeons caused by air raids, the Army relocated pigeon lofts into bomb shelters underground. Confined therein, the pigeons were subjected to prolonged periods of insufficient lighting, poor ventilation, and severely restricted space. Although these experiments enabled the Japanese Army to select for pigeons with a higher adaptability and survivability to the battlefield, they also pushed the animals beyond their physiological limits, leading to structural damage in their growth, breeding, and general conditions of health. This paper thus argues that these military experiments that made animals into tools of war involved the systematic instrumentalization of sentient life, representing the logic of "pragmatism and the utility paradigm" under the imperial Japanese state.