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goodforabeer t1_ixt5s7d wrote

One of the janitorial staff at my high school had been on the Bataan Death March, but I only heard him speak of it one time. Over winter break my first year of college, I was helping do some janitor work at the school to make some pocket change. He was talking to a school assembly. I listened in.

He told how he and other POWs had been put on a ship much like this one. They were down in the hold, packed so tight that some of them died, but couldn't fall. There was only one hole in the center of the deck for relieving themselves, and being packed so tight, they couldn't have gotten to it anyway.

It was the quietest I've ever heard a bunch of high school kids.

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Jupitair OP t1_ixt6lq6 wrote

Sounds like it was the Oryoku Maru: >Oryoku Maru was a 7,363-ton passenger cargo liner transporting 1,620 survivors of the Bataan Death March, Corregidor, and other battles, mostly American, packed in the holds, and 1,900 Japanese civilians and military personnel in the cabins. She left Manila on 13 December 1944, and over the next two days was bombed and strafed by U.S. airplanes. As she neared the naval base at Olongapo in Subic Bay, U.S. Navy planes from USS Hornet attacked the unmarked ship, causing it to sink on December 15. About 270 died aboard the ship. Some died from suffocation or dehydration. Others were killed in the attack, drowned or were shot while escaping the ship as it sank in Subic Bay, where the 'Hell Ship Memorial' is located.

>...On January 6, the smaller group of prisoners was transferred from Brazil Maru to Enoura Maru, and 37 British and Dutch were taken ashore. However, on January 9, Enoura Maru was bombed and disabled while in harbor, killing about 350 men. The survivors were put aboard Brazil Maru which arrived in Moji, Japan, on January 29, 1945. Only 550 of the over 900 who sailed from Taiwan were still alive; 150 more men died in Japan, Taiwan, and Korea in the following months, leaving only 403 survivors of the original 1,620 to be liberated from camps in Kyushu, Korea, Manchuria, and Taiwan in August and September 1945.

That's what the quote in my original comment was about. Fucking horrific

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GratefulNMD t1_ixyftpy wrote

My grandfather was aboard the Oryoku Maru which was sunk off Subic Bay. Then he was put on the Enoura Maru, and was killed when it was bombed in Takao Harbor. The Hellship experiences were just unthinkable. I've done a documentary film about this experience that is often run on PBS: The Last Ring Home. Book & film

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allenahansen t1_iy352ni wrote

Thank you for this link; it's on my watch list now.

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