The Oryoku Maru burns after U.S. Navy dive bombers attacked the vessel in Subic Bay, Philippines, Dec. 15, 1944. ()
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency has commenced a multiyear mission to account for Americans lost in the World War II sinking of a Japanese prisoner transport ship in the Philippines.
The agency last month announced one of its “largest and most complex recovery efforts to date” to account for service members lost in the sinking of the Oryoku Maru in Subic Bay in December 1944, according to a Feb. 24 news release.
“This mission represents our solemn commitment to provide the fullest possible accounting to families and the nation,” U.S. Army Capt. Barrett Breland, team leader for the recovery effort, said in the release. “We carry this responsibility with compassion and integrity, and our success depends on strong partnerships and unwavering respect for the fallen.”
The Oryoku Maru was part of a fleet of “hell ships,” requisitioned merchant vessels that the Japanese navy overloaded with prisoners for transport to camps in Japan or elsewhere in the empire.
“The holds were floating dungeons, where inmates were denied air, space, light, bathroom facilities, and adequate food and water — especially water,” Naval History and Heritage Command states on its website.
The Oryoku Maru set off from Manila on Dec. 13, 1944, with 1,600 POWs packed into its hold. Most had been in custody since the Bataan campaign of 1942 and had survived some of the war’s most notorious death marches, according to the command.
Navy dive bombers from two American aircraft carriers – the USS Hornet and USS Cabot -- sank the Oryoku Maru in Subic Bay two days after it departed Manila.
Around 1,000 Americans swam for shore but few survived the horrors of other hell ships and prison camps. At the end of the war, “U.S. authorities could find only 128 of Oryoku Maru’s POW survivors,” according to the command.
The recovery mission, in partnership with the U.S. Navy and Philippine government, presents challenges that will require advanced underwater recovery and identification techniques to ensure everything is conducted with the utmost care and dignity, according to the DPAA release.
The wreck of the Oryoku Maru lies about 550 yards from shore at a maximum depth of 90 feet, according to a post on the website of Subic Bay dive school Scuba Tech Philippines.
Visibility at the site, near the outflow of a local river, is often poor and the wreck itself was reduced by demolition to a tangled mass to protect passing commercial vessels, according to the dive school.
“Due to its history the wreck often creates a somber atmosphere in the minds of visiting divers,” the post states.
