The discovery last week of the wreck of the Montevideo Maru has prompted renewed focus on the Japanese prison ships of World War II. Many were sunk by Allied submarines, sending thousands of their comrades to their deaths.
abc.net.au/news/world-war-ii-hell-ships-montevideo-rakuyo-maru/102263746The discovery last week of the wreck of the Montevideo Maru was a welcome final chapter in what has been a desperately painful story for the families of those who died in Australia's worst maritime disaster.
According to Australian War Memorial research, more than 22,000 Allied troops died on Japanese hell ships, including 19,000 who were the victims of so-called friendly fire — more than the number of men who died on the Thai-Burma Railway. Senior historian at the Australian War Memorial, Lachlan Grant, said the experiences of Australians who died on these ships is often overshadowed by other prisoner of war stories.
The Sealion fired two torpedoes at the ship, both of which hit their target, causing the vessel to bust into flame.They had done enough damage for now. In an interview with his US Navy superiors several weeks later, the captain of the Pampanito, Lieutenant Commander Landon L. Davis Jr. said the men were in a terrible state .
"I know one gent whom we picked up — he was by himself also, no raft at all — he was just floating in the water, and it was almost dark, night-time, and we saw him waving what I thought was a white hat or a hand, or something like that, and we came alongside and the only thing he had been waving was his own hand, they were so white from the salt water immersion that it looked like a white sheet of paper.
When boarding the ship, the men had each been given a block of crude rubber they were told was to be used as a life preserver if the ship sank, but the blocks had no buoyancy — this was just how the Japanese were transporting crude rubber back home.Of the 1,300 Allied prisoners onboard the Rakuyo Maru, just 150 were rescued by the Americans, with another 500 picked up again by the Japanese.
The names of those who were recovered were not released and incident was not disclosed to parliament until two months after the vessel was sunk. It was not revealed until decades later that American commanders in many cases knew that ships being targeted by their own submarines carried Allied prisoners of war.
The deaths of 19,000 hell ship prisoners at the hands of their own allies was seen as an unfortunate but acceptable by-product of damaging the Japanese war effort.The first images of the Montevideo Maru, lying 4,000 metres beneath the surface, were released by Silentworld last week. "Is it actually grief that these generations are feeling? I think there's immense curiosity and satisfaction to be had in knowing more so that is something I would caution people to think about.The wreck of the Montevideo Maru is now a war grave but, lying 4,000 metres below sea level, won't inspire pilgrimages in the same way Gallipoli or Kokoda does.
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