LIFE AS A FEPOW · HELLSHIPS, 1942

 

The Lisbon Maru

 

In October 1942, 1,816 British prisoners from Hong Kong were sealed in the holds of a sinking ship. Among them were 373 men of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Scots.

 

 

 

Leaving Hong Kong

 

The Lisbon Maru was a Japanese cargo liner of 7,053 tons, built at Yokohama in 1920 and requisitioned by the Japanese Army as a troopship. At daybreak on 27 September 1942 she left Hong Kong bound for Japan, carrying around 700 Japanese troops and 1,816 British prisoners of war captured after the fall of Hong Kong in December 1941.

 

The prisoners came from across the Hong Kong garrison. The largest groups were 376 men of the Royal Artillery, 373 of the 2nd Battalion, The Royal Scots, 358 of the 1st Battalion, the Middlesex Regiment, and 311 of the Royal Navy, together with Royal Engineers, signallers, medical staff and others.

 

 

 

 

Inside the Holds

 

The men were packed into three holds. The Royal Navy were in No. 1 hold, nearest the bows. The Royal Scots, the Middlesex and the smaller units were in No. 2, under Lieutenant Colonel H.W.M. Stewart. The Royal Artillery were in No. 3, towards the stern. The holds were so crowded that not every man could lie down, and many of the prisoners were already weak and sick after months in the Hong Kong camps.

 

 

 

 

Torpedoed off Zhoushan

 

Like every hellship, the Lisbon Maru carried no markings to show that prisoners were on board. Early on 1 October 1942, off the Zhoushan islands near Shanghai, she was sighted by the American submarine USS Grouper. A torpedo struck at 7.15 am, leaving the ship disabled and slowly settling in the water.

 

The Japanese troops were taken off, but the prisoners were not. That evening the guards closed the hatches over the holds and fastened them down with battens, leaving the men below in darkness, with almost no air, as the ship began to sink.

 

 

 

 

Breaking Out

 

By the morning of 2 October the stern was under water. Lieutenant Colonel Stewart ordered a break-out, and Lieutenants Howell and Potter forced open their hatch. As the prisoners reached the deck the Japanese guards opened fire, and Lieutenant Potter of the Royal Scots was shot. Men from Nos. 1 and 2 holds poured out and jumped into the sea. In No. 3 hold the ladder to the deck gave way, and many of the Royal Artillery men were trapped as the ship went down.

 

In the water, the men were fired on from nearby Japanese ships. Many drowned in the strong currents; others managed to reach the rocky shores of the islands.

 

 

 

 

Rescued by Fishermen

 

Fishermen from the islands of Qingbang and Miaozihu put out in their small boats and rescued 384 prisoners, taking them into their homes and temples. Three days later Japanese troops landed and recaptured almost all of them, but three men were hidden by the islanders and smuggled to safety. They eventually reached Chongqing and returned to Britain in 1943.

 

 

 

 

The Cost

 

Of the 1,816 prisoners who left Hong Kong, 828 died, according to the Lisbon Maru roll of honour — trapped in the ship, drowned, or shot in the water. The survivors were gathered at Shanghai, and most were then shipped on to Japan to work in the camps at Kobe and Osaka, where many more died before the war ended.

 

After the war, the ship’s master, Kyoda Shigeru, was tried in Hong Kong and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.

 

 

 

 

Remembering the Lisbon Maru

 

The men of the Lisbon Maru are remembered by a memorial at St Stephen’s College in Hong Kong, by a memorial at the National Memorial Arboretum unveiled in 2021, and by a memorial on Qingbang Island, unveiled in 2025 to honour the fishermen who risked their lives to save British prisoners. In 2024 the documentary The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru brought their story to a new audience.

 

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