POWs - Rakuyō Maru survivors rescued by the crew of USS Pampanito

SS was a passenger cargo ship built in 1921 by the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Nagasaki for Nippon Yusen Kisen Kaisha.

Service history

The troopship was part of convoy HI-72 and transporting 1,317

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

n and British

prisoners of war A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held Captivity, captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold priso ...

(POWs) from Singapore to Formosa (Taiwan). Another ship in the convoy was SS ''Kachidoki Maru'' with another 950 Allied POWs and 1,095 Japanese on board. On the morning of 12 September 1944, the convoy was attacked in the

Luzon Strait The Luzon Strait (Tagalog: ''Kipot ng Luzon'', ) is the strait between Taiwan and Luzon island of the Philippines. The strait thereby connects the Philippine Sea to the South China Sea in the western Pacific Ocean. This body of water is an im ...

by a wolfpack consisting of three US submarines: , and . ''Rakuyō Maru'' was torpedoed by ''Sealion'' and sunk towards the evening. The ''Kachidoki Maru'' was also sunk with 488 people killed, mostly

POW A prisoner of war (POW) is a person who is held captive by a belligerent power during or immediately after an armed conflict. The earliest recorded usage of the phrase "prisoner of war" dates back to 1610. Belligerents hold prisoners of war ...

s. The Japanese survivors of the ''Rakuyō Maru'' were rescued by an escort vessel, leaving POWs in the water with rafts and some abandoned boats. A total of 1,159 POWs died, including sportsman Winston Ide and Brigadier

Arthur Varley Brigadier Arthur Leslie Varley, MC & Bar (13 October 1893 – 13 September 1944) was an Australian soldier who served in the First and the Second World Wars. He was commander of the 22nd Infantry Brigade during the final stages of the Battle o ...

. 350 of the dead were bombarded in lifeboats and killed by a Japanese navy vessel the next day when they were rowing towards land.Prisoners of War of Japanese 1942-45: ''Surviving the sinking of the Rakuyo Maru''
Linked 2015-02-20 On 15 September, the three submarines returned to the area and rescued 149 surviving POWs who were on rafts.Allbury, A. G. ''Bamboo and Bushido'' London Viking Press 1955 pp225-52 - survivor account. Four others died before they could be landed at

Tanapag Harbor Tanapag Harbor () is the primary harbor of Saipan, and is located on the western side of the island in the city of Tanapag. It is separated from the Philippine Sea by a barrier reef, located about 3 km (2 miles) off the shore. This reef forms ...

Saipan Saipan ( ch, Sa’ipan, cal, Seipél, formerly in es, Saipán, and in ja, 彩帆島, Saipan-tō) is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a Commonwealth (U.S. insular area), commonwealth of the United States in the western Pa ...

, in the

Mariana Islands The Mariana Islands (; also the Marianas; in Chamorro: ''Manislan Mariånas'') are a crescent-shaped archipelago comprising the summits of fifteen longitudinally oriented, mostly dormant volcanic mountains in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, betw ...

References

External links

Video of the rescue of POW ''Rakuyo Maru'' survivors
* ttp://www.powresearch.jp/jp/archive/ship/rakuyo.html Rakuyo Maru (Japanese)br>Incredible JourneyIWM interview with survivor Arthur BancroftIWM interview with survivor Philip Beilby
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rakuyo Maru 1921 ships Ships sunk by American submarines Maritime incidents in September 1944 World War II shipwrecks in the Philippine Sea Rakuyō Maru Japanese hell ships