''Kasato Maru'' or ''Kasado Maru'' ( ja, 笠戸丸) was a Japanese cargo/passenger ship built by the British shipyard
Wigham Richardson in 1900. Originally christened as SS ''Potosí'', the ship was bought by the Russian
Dobroflot, and renamed ''Kazan'', being used as a
hospital ship. She was sunk by the Japanese Navy during the
Russo-Japanese War, salvaged and passed to the Japanese control as compensation for war.
She was adapted to be a passenger ship and renamed as ''Kasato Maru'' and transported the soldiers who had fought in
Manchuria back to Japan.
She was then used to transport Japanese immigrants to Hawaii in 1906 and to Peru and Mexico in 1907. In 1908, she brought the first official group of
Japanese immigrants to Brazil.
The trip began at the
port of Kobe and ended, 52 days later, at the
Port of Santos on June 18, 1908. There came 165 families (781 people) who went to work in the coffee plantations of the west of
São Paulo.
Some Japanese immigrants arrived at Brazil before ''Kasato Maru'', founding an agricultural colony in the current municipality of
Conceição de Macabu (then district of Macaé), in the state of
Rio de Janeiro. However, it was the arrival of this first group brought by ''Kasato Maru'' that initiated a continuous flow of immigration from Japanese to Brazil. Some of the Kasato Maru's passengers continued to Argentina (see
:es:Café El Japonés).
After some time, ''Kasato Maru'' was transformed into a freighter ship and still returned to Brazil a second and last time, in 1917, transporting loads in the service of
Osaka Sosen Kaisha (OSK) Line.
In 1942 she was requisitioned by the
Imperial Japanese Navy and became part of the
Japanese fleet
The Imperial Japanese Navy (IJN; Kyūjitai: Shinjitai: ' 'Navy of the Greater Japanese Empire', or ''Nippon Kaigun'', 'Japanese Navy') was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1868 to 1945, Potsdam Declaration, when it was dissolved following ...
in
World War II as a support ship.
On 9 August 1945, ''Kasato Maru'' was bombed by three Soviet aircraft from 11:15. to 14:30. ''Kasato Maru'' then sank into the
Bering Sea
The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Ameri ...
in the Soviet waters near the
Kamchatka Peninsula.
It is currently submerged to a depth of 18 meters and in good state of conservation.
References
{{Reflist
Passenger ships of Japan
1900 ships
Shipwrecks of Japan
Japanese Brazilian