Many people know about the Death Railway and the ‘Bridge on the River Kwai’, but fewer know what happened to the POWs who worked on the railway after its completion in October 1943. Following the linking of the rails at Konkoita Thailand, the bulk of the men were gathered up and moved back down the line to camps in Kanchanaburi and ChungKai. Here with a little better food, some rest and medical care, the men began to get well, and seeing this the Japanese decided that these men were fit enough to be sent to Japan to work in factories, mines and shipyards there to relieve their men to fight at the front. So throughout the spring of 1944 trainloads of men were sent back to Singapore to await the ships that would take them on to Japan.
There were several groups of POWs sent to Japan at various times and all by the same means – on board the HELLSHIPS! In early June the first group - labelled as Japan Party One, left Singapore in a four-ship convoy with three ships going direct to Japan and one ship having to stop off in Taiwan after being severely damaged in a typhoon. At Takao the men were off-loaded and moved to another ship – the Tamahoko Maru, for the remainder of the journey to Japan. This ship had a large number of Australian, Dutch and some American POWs who had been captured in the Dutch East Indies – 772 in all. Just as the ship was approaching Nagasaki the USS Tang torpedoed the ship with a loss of 560 lives. The survivors were taken to a POW camp on Kyushu.
Tamahoku Maru
Then on July 4th another large group of POWs known as Japan Party 2, departed Singapore in a large convoy with five ships carrying over 5,000 POWs. The convoy first went to Miri in Borneo where one of the ships – the Hofuku Maru had to drop out because of engine trouble. After temporary repairs it continued on its voyage, limping into Manila on July 19th where it met the other four ships of the main convoy. Two of the ships sailed fairly soon thereafter and arrived at Moji in late August, but the men on the other two were put to work on the docks for about a month and then they too left for Japan on August 9th. These last two ships ran into a severe typhoon and were nearly wrecked. One ship was able to carry on, but the other had to transfer its 700 POWs to another ship for the remainder of the journey, arriving in Japan in early September but not before almost 40 men had died en route.
Meanwhile the Hofuku Maru remained in Manila undergoing prolonged repairs and all this time the prisoners were not allowed off the ship, many were sick and some died before finally, in late August, a number were offloaded and taken to Bilibid Prison hospital.
Hofuku Maru
In the meantime back in Singapore Japan Party Three was loaded aboard two ships - The Rakuyo Maru with 1,318 British and Australian POWs, and the Kachidoki Maru – formerly the SS President Harrison - an American ship which had been captured by the Japanese, with 900 British POWs. The convoy sailed on September 6th and made its way up through the South China Sea past Saigon, and by the early morning on the 12th it was 500 kms east of Hainan Island. At about 5:30 am the submarine USS Sealion II sent two torpedoes into the Rakuyo Maru and despite the initial panic the ship did not sink for almost 12 hours, so all of the men got off the ship and into the water holding onto various bits of wreckage and some taking refuge in lifeboats that had been abandoned by the Japanese after they were rescued by their own ships. Following the rescue of their own men, the Japanese warships tore through the mass of POWs floundering in the sea killing many and then raced off abandoning the men. The survivors spent the next five days at sea - thirsty, starving, and suffering from heatstroke with men dying in the hundreds daily.
Some of the POWs were eventually rescued when on September 14th several Japanese Navy vessels returned to the scene and picked up about 150 survivors and took them to Hainan Island. Finally on September 15th the USS Pampanito while traversing the area of the sinking came upon a number of POWs clinging to makeshift rafts and together with the USS Sealion II, USS Barb and USS Queenfish they rescued 159 of the men before a severe storm called an end to the rescue on the 17th. Sadly, seven of the men picked up by the subs died en route to the Naval station at Saipan.
Rakuyo Maru
Following the early morning attack on the Rakuyo Maru, the rest of the convoy turned and headed west and later that evening the USS Pampanito found the convoy about 300 kms from Hainan Island and put a torpedo into the Kachidoki Maru a little after 11 pm. The ship sank in about 20 minutes with a loss of nearly 600 lives. The next day a number of Japanese naval ships and some local fishing boats rescued the survivors who were in a terrible state – many with severe injuries and broken limbs. All - including the men rescued by the Japanese from the Rakuyo Maru, were subsequently loaded on board a large Japanese transport ship and continued their journey to Japan via Keelung Taiwan, arriving at Moji on September 28th.
Kachidoki Maru
Back in Manila the Hofuku Maru had finished extensive repairs and finally, after having spent nearly two months in the harbour there, it finally sailed in an eleven-ship convoy late on September 20th and anchored at Subic Bay for the night. The next morning, the 21st, as it made its way up the west coast of Luzon, nearly 100 aircraft from the carrier USS Hornet and Task Force 38 found the convoy and in a little over 5 minutes the Hofuku Maru was sunk. After repeated attacks by the Hornet aircraft during the day, by late afternoon all the ships in the convoy were gone. Of the 1,289 men aboard the Hofuku Maru only about 200 survived by swimming to the nearby shore and 50 others were picked up by Japanese escort ships and taken to Taiwan where they were interned for a time in Heito Camp. Some of these men were later sent on to Japan, and a number remained on Taiwan til the end of the war. The men who swam to shore were put aboard other hellships later that fall and many of those would die as well.
Other tragedies of note that month include the sinking of the Shinyo Maru off the coast of Mindanao in the Philippines on September 7th, and the greatest sea disaster of WWII in terms of loss of life with the sinking of the Junyo Maru off Sumatra on the 18th.
Shinyo Maru - POWS were machine-gunned by the Japanese as the ship sank.
The Shinyo Maru sailed on September 7th, carrying 750 POWs destined for Manila from the POW camp in Davao and for protection hugged the coast of the island for most of the day. The submarine USS Paddle lay in wait and late that same afternoon it torpedoed both the Shinyo Maru and another large freighter. It was chaos aboard the hellship as the Japanese tore off the hatch covers and threw grenades into the holds and machine-gunned the POWs as they tried to make their way to safety. They also machine-gunned POWs on deck and in the water. Many men died in the explosion from the torpedoes or drowned when the ship went down and of those who did survive many were shot in the water by the Japanese – it was a terrible massacre. Only 82 men made it to shore alive and were rescued by Philippine guerillas. Later they were evacuated by an allied submarine.
On September 7th 2014 - 70 years to the day after the sinking, a memorial was unveiled and dedicated in Zamboanga Philippines in memory of the men of the Shinyo Maru and the Philippine people who rescued and hid the survivors until they could be evacuated.
Shinyo Maru Memorial – Dedicated September 7, 2014
On September 16th the Junyo Maru departed from Java with over 6,500 captives on board – about 2,200 POWs, and 4,320 Javanese conscripts – they were all going to build a railway on Sumatra. They were delayed a day before the ship finally sailed and late in the afternoon of the 18th the British submarine HMS Tradewind sent two torpedoes into the ship, each blasting holes about 25 feet in diameter. The ship sank quickly rising up by the bow until nearly 90 degrees out of the water, then it slid backwards down into a watery grave. Of the 2,200 POWs 1,520 died while of the 4,320 Asian labourers 4,120 perished. It was the greatest sea disaster of WWII in the Pacific. The survivors were taken to Padang, Sumatra and began work on the railway but by war’s end only 90 survived.
Junyo Maru - can you imagine cramming more than 6,500 men on a ship this size!
Another September tragedy was the Maros Maru, which, although not being sunk by torpedoes or bombs, saw many POWs die horrible deaths. On September 17th it sailed from Ambon destined for Java with an initial cargo of 500 British and Dutch POWs. Conditions on this ship were so terrible with overcrowding and a lack of water and food that men died like flies. On the 21st during a stop at Muna Island in the Celebes, another 150 British and Dutch POWs were put aboard, adding to the already dire situation. Sickness and disease was rife and at Makassar 159 men died and were thrown overboard. After a further long roundabout voyage the Maros Maru finally arrived at Surabaya Java on November 22nd with only 325 survivors – fully half of the POWs had died on the voyage.
With over 9,000 POWs and Asian labourers dying on various hellships that month, September 1944 was the worst month of the war for Allied POW deaths.
A lot more information is available online about the hellships and the atrocities committed by the Japanese while transporting their prisoners of war, and also in the excellent book by Gregory Michno titled ‘Death on the Hellships’ from which some of the material and statistics in this article were taken. Greg has become a good friend and has helped a lot with my work.
In reading and researching so much about the hellships over the years one is appalled at the amount of suffering inflicted on the POWs and the extremely high death rate, and to even try to understand what the POWs went through is impossible for those who did not actually experience it. All of the POWs that I have talked to basically agree that their time spent on the hellships was the worse they had as POWs – even over atrocities like the Bataan Death March and the Death Railway.
We must never allow ourselves to forget this terrible part of WWII history in respect and honour of the men who endured it.
The World War II Hellships Memorial, located at Subic Bay in the Philippines dedicated in January 2006 in honour and memory of all the men who suffered and those who died on the hellships.
The original Taiwan Hellships Memorial - also dedicated in January 2006 and located in the Chijin District at Kaohsiung Harbour. Taiwan had the highest number of hellship arrivals and departures of any place in Asia during World War II.