Status Shipwreck Draught 29.4 feet (9.0 m) Length 122 m Draft 8.96 m Builder Tsurumi-ku | Displacement 5,870 gross ton Launched 1919 Weight 5,964 tons Beam 16 m | |
Name Rozan Maru (1919–???)
Karafuto Maru
Nichiryu Maru (??-1943) Owner Karafuto Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha
Nissan Kissen Kabushiki Kaisha
Imperial Japanese Army (???-1943) Fate Sunk by Australian aircraft on 6 January 1943 | ||
The Nichiryu Maru (Nitiryu Maru) was a 5,447 gross ton cargo ship built by Asano Ship Building Company, Tsurumi in 1919 as Rozan Maru. She was acquired by Karafuto Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha and renamed Karafuto Maru and later acquired by Nissan Kissen Kabushiki Kaisha and renamed Nichiryu Maru. She was requistioned by the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II.
Fate
On 6 January 1943, while steaming as part of a convoy, carrying two companies of the 3rd Battalion, 102nd Infantry Regiment and medical supplies for the garrison at Lae, was hit by bombs from a Royal Australian Air Force PBY Catalina aircraft, and was sunk at 06°30'S, 149°00'E. Destroyers rescued 739 of the 1,100 troops on board, but the ship took with it 361 soldiers and all of Okabe’s medical supplies.