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.

Hagen’s series is well worth the read, and covers every aspect of the war. Written in an engaging style, it’s divided up into short chapters, from the personalities and major battles, to the little known aspects of the war, which makes it an easy read to pickup where you left off. You can read the pdf of Chapter 9 (3+ pages), The Hell Ships, by Jerome T. Hagen (Brigadier General, USMC, retired) here: Hell Ships

More than 126,000 allied prisoners were transported on hellships in WWII, with more than 21,000 fatalities. Subtracting out multiple sailings by some prisoners, Michno calculates the death rate of these prisoners to be greater than 40%- a staggering figure.  He concludes that it was deadlier to be a POW on a hellship than to be a marine fighting in the campaign (Michno, p.282-283).  Furthermore, only 1,540 of these deaths were attributed to intolerable treatment, with the remaining 19,000+ deaths due to the end result of “friendly fire” when Japanese ships were attacked (Michno, p.292).

Here are the two known  hellships that are dived at Truk Lagoon (now called Chuuk):

The 461′ Rio De Janeiro Maru was built in 1930, and was once a passenger liner that was converted into a submarine tender, and then later to a transport ship for troops and weapons. She now rests on her starboard side in 110′ of water to the bottom, sunk on February 17, 1944 during the U.S. Navy’s devastating “Operation Hailstone” aerial attack. Michno lists the Rio De Janeiro as making a two day voyage across the Java Sea, carrying 200 British POW’s, from Makassar on 10/02/43 from Celebes to Java on Batavia . Westpoint supports this but lists an additional previous voyage of 200 POW’s from Java on 05/01/43 to Ambon on the Moluccas (Indonesia). No deaths were listed by Michno. Michno goes further and states that on the October voyage, the POW’s had plenty of room and the food was adequate, but the ship carried ammunition even though it had red crosses painted on it (Michno, p.124).

Today the Rio De Janeiro is one of the most popular wrecks explored by divers at Truk Lagoon. It is noted for its holds containing china, artillery barrels, gun turrets, and crates of beer bottles.

The group COFEPOW (Children of Far East POW’s) lists another popular Truk Lagoon wreck, the Heian Maru, as involved in the transportation of POW’s between different ports and camps in the Moluccas, Flores and Surabaya area (4). The Heian was a former luxury liner and cargo ship that was converted into a subtender. Today it rests on its port side in about 90′ of water to the bottom, and is distinguished as being Truk’s largest wreck at 510′. It is noted for its cargohold of Longlance torpedoes, one of the most feared weapons of the war.

As more information is uncovered, undoubtedly more Hell Ships will be identified and added to the lists. Michno’s study focused on white men of European ancestry, but there were many other shipments consisting of Indians, Chinese, Koreans and East Indians. Michno describes the difficulties that limit our knowledge: the language barrier for English speaking researchers, undocumented voyages, and the destruction of records by the Japanese at the end of the war (Michno, p.276).

In light of this information, I’ll be diving any future Maru with a greater sense of reverence.

Related Articles:
1) Truk Lagoon, Day 1, WW II Relics Island Tour.
2) Diving the Truk Lagoon Wrecks.
3) Diving the Submarine I169, Betty bomber, and Kensho Maru.

References:
1) Hagen, Jerome T. (2005) War in the Pacific (Vol.1). Chapter 9 “The Hell Ships”.
2) Michno, Gregory F. (2001) Death on the Hellships.
3) Westpoint.org http://www.west-point.org/family/japanese-pow/ShipsNum.htm (Accessed on Feb 16, 2015)
4) COFEPOW http://www.cofepow.org.uk/pages/ships_suez_maru.htm (Accessed on Feb 16, 2015)