Name Tenyo Maru In service 9 September 1941 Construction started 3 July 1934 Length 133 m Draft 10 m Builder Nagasaki | Laid down 3 July 1934 Struck 1 April 1942 Launched 22 January 1935 Weight 6,953 tons Beam 18 m | |
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Owner Toyo Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha (1935-1941)
Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1942) Fate Sunk by US carrier aircraft on 10 March 1942 | ||
The Tenyo Maru was a 6,843 gross ton passenger cargo ship built by Mitsubishi, Nagasaki for Toyo Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha in 1935. She was chartered to Mitsui and plied the New York route until she was requisitioned on 9 September 1941 by the Imperial Japanese Navy during World War II and converted at the Harima shipyard to a minelayer, which was completed on 31 October 1941.
Assigned to the Mine Division 19, of the Fourth Fleet, she landed troops at Makin Island. As part of the Rabaul invasion fleet, she carried air base construction materials.
Fate
On 10 March 1942, during the invasion of Lae-Salamaua, Tenyo Maru suffers two direct bomb hits from SBD's from the United States Navy aircraft carriers USS Lexington and USS Yorktown and breaks in two and sinks off Lae, New Guinea. Tenyo Maru was removed from the Navy List on 1 April 1942.
The bow of the ship was still visible above the water, at the end of the former Lae Airport in the 1970s.