LIFE AS A FEPOW · HELLSHIPS, 1945

 

The Brazil Maru

 

In January 1945 the Brazil Maru carried the last survivors of the Oryoku Maru from Formosa to Japan. Around 500 prisoners died on the voyage.

 

 

 

A Japanese Transport

 

The Brazil Maru was a 5,859-ton cargo ship built by Kawasaki in Japan in 1919. During the war she was taken over by the Imperial Japanese Navy and used as a transport.

 

 

 

 

The Road to Formosa

 

In December 1944 the Oryoku Maru was sunk in Subic Bay with around 1,620 prisoners on board, most of them American but including British and Dutch men. On 27 December the survivors were loaded into two ships at San Fernando, La Union. Around 240 went into the Brazil Maru and the rest into the Enoura Maru.

 

Both ships had been carrying horses, and the manure had not been cleaned out of the holds. No food had been loaded for the prisoners. The ships reached Takao, now Kaohsiung in Taiwan, on 1 January 1945.

 

 

 

 

The Last Voyage

 

On 9 January 1945 the Enoura Maru was bombed in Takao harbour and hundreds of prisoners were killed. The survivors, many of them wounded, were moved into the Brazil Maru, which sailed for Japan on 14 January.

 

As the ship headed north into the winter cold, the men had little food or water and many were already sick or injured. Men died every day of the voyage, and it is estimated that around 500 prisoners died on the way from Takao to Japan.

 

 

 

 

Arrival at Moji

 

The Brazil Maru reached Moji in Japan on 29 January 1945. Only around 500 of the men who had left Takao were still alive, though sources give figures between 497 and 550.

 

Many of the survivors were too weak to walk. They were sent to hospital or to prison camps around Fukuoka, including 96 men taken to Fukuoka 17 at Omuta, and some officers were later moved on to Mukden in Manchuria. More died in the months that followed. Of the roughly 1,620 men who had left Manila in December, only about 400 were alive at the end of the war.

 

 

 

 

Remembering the Brazil Maru

 

The Brazil Maru carried the last survivors of one of the deadliest journeys made by prisoners of war in the Far East. The ship herself was sunk in May 1945.

 

The American, British and Dutch prisoners who died aboard her had already survived the Oryoku Maru and the Enoura Maru, and their sacrifice must never be forgotten.

 

Their story is one of many told on our Hellships page.