LIFE AS A FEPOW · AT SEA, 1942–1945
The Hell Ships
Packed into the holds of unmarked cargo ships, thousands of Allied prisoners of war were carried across Asia to work for Japan. Many never reached land.
What Were the Hellships?
“Hellships” was the name prisoners gave to the Japanese merchant ships used to move prisoners of war and forced labourers around Japan’s empire between 1942 and 1945. Men captured in Singapore, Java, Hong Kong and the Philippines were shipped to work camps in Burma, Thailand, Borneo, Formosa (Taiwan) and Japan itself, where they laboured in mines, docks, shipyards and factories.
The ships were old cargo vessels, never built to carry people. Hundreds of men were forced down into each hold, packed so tightly that many could not lie down. There was little air, food or water. The heat below deck was suffocating, and dysentery, malaria and beriberi spread quickly. A single voyage could last for weeks.
The ships carried no markings to show that prisoners were on board, and they often sailed in convoys with Japanese troops and war supplies. Allied submarines and aircraft, unaware of who was inside, attacked many of them. More than 20,000 Allied prisoners are thought to have died at sea.
Among the worst losses was the Lisbon Maru, torpedoed in October 1942 while carrying 1,816 British prisoners from Hong Kong — many of them men of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Scots. More than 800 died. In September 1944 the Rakuyo Maru, carrying survivors of the Burma–Siam Railway, was sunk with the loss of 1,159 men.
The Hellships
Some of the ships that carried Allied prisoners of war, in the order they were lost.
1 October 1942 · Torpedoed by USS Grouper off Shanghai, carrying 1,816 British prisoners from Hong Kong. 828 died.
29 November 1943 · Sunk by USS Bonefish on the way from Ambon to Java, carrying around 550 British and Dutch prisoners. None survived.
24 June 1944 · Sunk by USS Tang near Nagasaki, carrying 772 Australian, British, American and Dutch prisoners. 560 died.
26 June 1944 · Torpedoed by HMS Truculent in the Strait of Malacca, carrying around 720 prisoners. About 180 died.
12 September 1944 · Sunk by USS Sealion, carrying 1,317 British and Australian survivors of the Burma–Siam Railway. 1,159 died.
12 September 1944 · Sunk by USS Pampanito in the same convoy, carrying around 950 British prisoners. 431 died.
17 September 1944 · Left Ambon for Java with around 650 British and Dutch prisoners. The voyage took 67 days, and around 325 died of thirst, hunger and disease.
18 September 1944 · Torpedoed by HMS Tradewind off Sumatra, carrying Dutch, British and Australian prisoners and over 4,000 Javanese labourers. More than 5,600 died.
21 September 1944 · Sunk by American aircraft off the Philippines, carrying 1,289 British and Dutch prisoners. 1,047 died.
15 December 1944 · Bombed by US Navy aircraft in Subic Bay, carrying around 1,620 American, British and Dutch prisoners. Survivors were moved to the Enoura Maru and Brazil Maru; only around 400 lived to the end of the war.
9 January 1945 · Bombed by US aircraft in Takao harbour, Formosa, while carrying survivors of the Oryoku Maru. Around 350 to 400 prisoners died.
14–29 January 1945 · Carried the last survivors of the Oryoku Maru from Takao, Formosa, to Moji, Japan. Around 500 prisoners died on the voyage.
See where each ship was lost on our Hellships Map.