February 20, 2015.
I have a strong interest in history, and I’m always reading to gain insights and context into the places that I have been or want to visit in the future. While reading Jerome T. Hagen’s excellent award winning series “War in the Pacific”, I was most struck by Chapter 9 (Vol.1), the “Hell Ships”. I have reproduced this Chapter below for your reading, with the author’s permission, in order to help promote awareness within the scuba diving community.
The Hell Ships are probably one of the least known atrocities that occurred in WWII by the Imperial Japanese. They earned their namesake from the survivors that describe the conditions on them to be the worst experience of their captivity, even when compared to the Bataan Death March (Michno, p.306).
Having dived several Japanese transports (“Maru”) at Truk Lagoon -the “Wreck Diving Capitol of the World”- I was interested to see if any of these may have been listed as belonging to the more than 150 known Hell Ships. There are at least two. (more…)