Out of service 29 November 1943 Launched 1919 Tonnage 4.214 million kg | In service 1919-1943 Length 110 m Draft 8.7 m | |
Owner Yamashita Kisen K. K (1919-1932) - Kuribayashi Shosen K. K (1932-1943) Fate Torpedoed and sunk 29 November 1943 | ||
SS Suez Maru was a Japanese passenger-cargo ship, used as a hell ship, which was torpedoed by submarine USS Bonefish on 29 November 1943, carrying 548 Allied POWs of which many drowned and the rest were shot by the Japanese.
Service history
Suez Maru sailed on 25 November 1943 with 548 POWs (415 British and 133 Dutch) from Ambon bound for Surabaya. The POWs were all sick men from the work-camps on the Moluccas and Ambon. Twenty men were on stretchers. There were also several hundreds of sick and wounded Japanese soldiers on board.
On 29 November 1943 , near Kangean Island east of Madoera Island, the ship was torpedoed by USS Bonefish, unaware of the presence of Allied POWs. Many of the POWs drowned in the holds of the ship, but between 200 and 250 escaped from the holds and jumped into the water. Minesweeper W.12 only picked up the Japanese survivors. Then Captain Kawano Usumu, commander of W-12, decided that his ship could not carry any more survivors and ordered Lt. Koshio to machine-gun all surviving POWs in the water, All were killed. There were also some 69 Japanese casualties which went down with Suez Maru.