Jim's Travel & Photographic Blog: Hell Ships, Subic Bay, Philippines

The term ‘Hell Ship’ was used to describe the horrendous conditions aboard vessels used by the Japanese to transport prisoners during World War II. The Japanese did not mark these ships and subsequently, they became targets of allied aircraft and torpedoes. Many ‘Hell Ships’ left the Philippines bound for Japan, Korea and China. Some left from Subic Bay:

Hell Ship

 (Subic Naval Museum)

Arisan Maru: 1795 POW's killed.
Shinyo Maru: 668 POW's killed.
Oryoku Maru: 268 POW's killed.
Enoura Maru: about 300 POW's killed.
Brazil Maru: arrived with 550 dead POW's on board.
Kachidoki Maru: about 400 POW's killed.
Rakuyo Maru: 1159 POW's killed.
Harukiku Maru: 177 POW's killed.
Hofuku Maru: 1047 POW's killed.
Lisbon Maru: 847 POW's killed.
Suez Maru: 546 POW's killed.
Singapore Maru: arrived with 155 dead POW's on board.
Junyo Maru: about 1500 POW's killed, also some thousands of Indonesian forced labourers killed. In total 5620 killed.
Montevideo Maru: all 845 POW's and 208 internees killed.

I have recently been reading about one such ‘Hell Ship’ – the Oryoku Maru; which lies just a few hundred metres from where I work in Subic Bay.

ORYOKU MARU

 (US archives).

The Oryoku Maru was a Japanese passenger cargo ship. In World War II, Oryoku Maru was converted and used for troop transport and latterly a prisoner of war transport ship. She left Manila on December 13 1944, with 1620 POWs packed into the holds, mostly American. As the ship neared the naval base of Olongapo in Subic Bay, US Navy planes from the USS Hornet attacked the unmarked ship causing it to sink on December 15.

ORYOKU MARU being attacked by US Navy aircraft.

(US archives)

About 100 men had already died aboard the ship due to suffocation or dehydration since leaving Manila, nearly 200 others were killed in the bombing or shot in the water as they tried to escape.

The survivors were held for several days in an open air tennis court at Olongapo Naval Base. Whilst there, the prisoners were afforded no sanitary conditions whatsoever. Several deaths occurred and prisoners were treated extremely badly. The prisoners were then moved to San Fernando, Pampanga.

On arrival in San Fernando, 15 weak or wounded prisoners were loaded onto a truck, believing they were being taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. It was later revealed during a 1946 war crimes trial that they were taken to a nearby cemetery, beheaded, and dumped into a mass grave.

The remaining 1300 survivors were loaded onto two other Japanese ships, the Enoura Maru and the smaller Brazil Maru. Both ships reached Kaohsiung harbour in Taiwan on New Year's Day, where prisoners were transferred from Brazil Maru to Enoura Maru.

However, on January 9, the Enoura Maru was bombed and disabled whilst in harbour, killing about 350 men. The survivors were then put back aboard the Brazil Maru which arrived in Moji, Japan on January 29 1945.

Only 550 of the total 950 prisoners who sailed from Taiwan were still alive. 150 more men died in Japan, Taiwan and Korea in the coming months. Leaving only 403 of the original 1620 survivors from the Oryoku Maru to be liberated from camps in Kyushu, Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan in August and September 1945.

Modern day USS Essex and USS Tortuga yards from the wreck site.

In 2006, a memorial commemorating those who perished on these ‘Hell Ships’ was unveiled in Subic Bay – just a few yards from the site of the tragic sinking of the Oryoku Maru.