LIFE AS A FEPOW · HELLSHIPS, 1944

 

The Harugiku Maru

 

On 26 June 1944 the Harugiku Maru was torpedoed in the Strait of Malacca while carrying Allied prisoners to the Sumatra railway. Around 180 of them were lost.

 

 

 

A Captured Ship

 

She was built in Rotterdam in 1910 as the Van Waerwijck, a steamer of the Dutch KPM line that carried passengers and cargo between the islands of the Netherlands East Indies for more than thirty years.

 

When Japan invaded Java in March 1942 her crew scuttled her as a blockship at the mouth of Tanjung Priok harbour. The Japanese raised and repaired her, and by July 1942 she was back at sea as the Harugiku Maru, sometimes spelled Harukiku Maru.

 

 

 

 

Bound for Sumatra

 

In June 1944 Japanese trucks took prisoners from Gloe Gloer camp near Medan to the port of Belawan. They were British, Australian and Dutch men from the army, the Royal Navy, the RAF and the Merchant Navy.

 

They were packed into the fore and aft holds, and on 25 June the ship sailed in a small escorted convoy with a cargo of timber and rubber. The prisoners were being sent to Pekanbaru to build a railway across central Sumatra. Sources give between about 730 and 1,190 prisoners on board.

 

 

 

 

Torpedoed in the Malacca Strait

 

On 26 June 1944 the British submarine HMS Truculent sighted the convoy. Her crew had no way of knowing that prisoners were aboard. She fired four torpedoes, and two struck the Harugiku Maru on her port side.

 

The ship broke in two. The stern sank quickly and the bow drifted onto a sandbank with its holds flooded. Men trapped below drowned, while others jumped into the sea and clung to wreckage for up to four hours.

 

 

 

 

After the Sinking

 

Around 180 prisoners died, though sources give figures from 154 to 198. A Japanese tanker in the convoy picked up survivors and landed many of them at Singapore on 28 June, where they were held at the River Valley Road camp. Some later died of their injuries.

 

After about a month most of the survivors were shipped back to Sumatra, where they worked on the Pekanbaru railway until the end of the war.

 

Among those saved was Judy, a pointer smuggled aboard by RAF Leading Aircraftman Frank Williams. He pushed her out through a porthole as the ship went down, and she helped men in the water. In 1946 she was awarded the Dickin Medal.

 

 

 

 

Remembering the Harugiku Maru

 

The Harugiku Maru is one of the less well known hellships, yet the men lost aboard her were British, Australian and Dutch prisoners on their way to one of the cruellest railways of the war. Their sacrifice must never be forgotten.

 

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