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THE HELL OF A JAPANESE PRISON SHIP

The Notu Maru, one of the Japanese freighters used as prison ships, otherwise known as the ‘Hell Ships’.
On the 29th October 1942 Arthur Titherington found himself somewhere in the South China Sea, destination unknown. He had been captured at Singapore and was now amongst the thousands of Prisoners of War who were being despatched to a variety of locations around the south east Asia to work for the Japanese.

On the 25th October, at the Singapore dockside, he and around a thousand other PoWs had been loaded aboard the England Maru, an old freighter with the most basic facilities. They were to spend most of the journey in the bare hold:

We were not allowed on deck until the ship was well out to sea, and then only for 15 minutes. This was the routine during the next few weeks, just a quarter of an hour each day in the fresh air, the rest of the day being spent consigned to the stinking holds below.

Part of this small but invaluable daily break on deck could be used to visit the very primitive toilets, nothing more than a large box arrangement with a hole in the base, the whole thing being suspended over the side ofthe ship. Without a doubt it was the most frightening method of going to the toilet imaginable; certainly nothing in my life had ever equipped me for such an experience.

The alternative facilities were buckets in each hold. When the bucket required emptying it had to be lifted out ofthe hold on the end of a rope. One unsteady pull meant, at best, that the contents were deposited on the floor of the hold. A panic-stricken spell in the box hanging over the side of the ship was preferable to a floor where we lived that was strewn with faeces.

For the next few days the ship battered its way through the South China Sea, pitching and rolling in a most alarming way. We listened to the ancient plates and timbers creaking around us and, at times, mused on the irony that this vessel in which we were travelling to an unknown destination had been built, many years before, on the banks of the Clyde.

At times the stench was almost overpowering, and to add to the general misery more and more men were going down with dysentery.

It was during this voyage I really learned to overcome any squeamishness I might still have had. With my shoulder against a bulkhead, and one leg braced against an upright to counter the rolling of the ship, I sat eating one of our twice daily portions of boiled rice, while at the same time watching a man who was obviously in the throes of dysentery.

With his backside on a latrine bucket he was vomiting from his other end into a container, and quite often missing it. With the next roll of the ship he pitched forward, spilling the contents of both containers, and went crashing down on the deck. I put down my rice, wiped up the spillage as best as I could, helped him back onto the bucket and returned to my meal. My sensibilities had been brought to a point of complete numbness.

The paucity of the rations took on a new dimension on board ship but in a sense the obsession over food began to lessen; there were now other problems to concern ourselves with: illness, sea sickness and the future.

I was, at the time, like other men to whom I spoke, prepared to accept the acute shortage of food as a temporary situation. There were, after all, over 1,000 prisoners on board plus a hundred japanese troops, and the ship’s crew. It was a small vessel and rations were bound to be scarce. The problem, I reasoned, would end when we arrived at our destination.

The one thing that never entered my head was that our future was to be one of sheer starvation, in far too many cases resulting in death.

See Arthur Titherington: Kinkaseki: One Day at a Time

Arthur Titherington died in 2010, see Telegraph obituary, having spent the greater part of his life trying to get some form of justice from the Japanese for their treatment of Prisoners of War.

In his memoir Titherington recalls that he was actually quite lucky on the England Maru. Many other Japanese prisoner transports, being unmarked enemy vessels, were torpedoed. The Montevideo Maru was the first but there were many others and Arthur Titherington wanted to ensure that these ships, sometimes known as the ‘Hell Ships’, were not forgotten:

Monteviedo Maru. Sunk by submarine 1 July 1942. Total number of prisoners on board 1,053.
No survivors.

Kachidoki Maru. Torpedoed by aircraft 12 September 1942. Total number of prisoners on board 950. Missing or dead 435.

Tyofuku Maru. Sunk by aircraft 21 September 1942. Total number of prisoners on board 1,287. Missing or dead 907.

Lisbon Maru. Sunk by submarine 2 October 1942. Total number of prisoners on board 1,816. Missing or dead 839.

Nichimei Maru. Sunk by submarine 15 January 1943. Total number of prisoners on board 548.
No survivors

Suez Maru. Sunk by torpedo 29 September 1943. Total number of prisoners on board 548.
No survivors.

Tamabuko Maru. Sunk by torpedo 24 June 1944. Total number of prisoners on board 772. Missing or dead 560.

Haragiku Maru. Sunk by torpedo 26 June 1944. Total number of prisoners on board 720, Missing or dead 177.

Rakuyo Maru. Sunk by torpedo 12 September 1944. Total number of prisoners on board 1,214. Missing or dead 1,179.

Shinyu Maru. Sunk by submarine 17 September 1944. Total number of prisoners 750.
No survivors.

Unya Maru. Sunk by submarine 18 September 1944. Total number of prisoners on board 2,200. Missing or dead 1,477.

Arizan Maru. Sunk by torpedo 24 October 1944. Total number ofprisoners on board 1,782. Missing or dead 1,778.

Oryoku Maru; Enoura Maru; Brazil Maru. Torpedoed by aircraft 9 January 1945. Total number of prisoners on board the three ships 1,620. Missing or dead 1,060.

ORIGIN - VISIT WEBSITE:*** http://ww2today.com/29th-october-1942-the-hell-of-a-japanese-prison-ship ***

Submitted 8 August 2017 by Daniel Bishop
-HISTORICAL PLACES - Labuan War Memorial Park- Report

-HISTORICAL PLACES - Labuan War Memorial Park- Along Jalan Tanjung Batu, where locals would pass by indifferently on their tooting motorcycles and zooming cars, lie 3,908 soldiers in perfectly squared platoons, much like how they would stand in salutation when they were alive. These soldiers were from all over: Australia, Great Britain, India, New Zealand and even Malaysia. The POWs of Sandakan, the perished war heroes of the Australian 7th and 9th Divisions, as well as those of the Punjab Signal Corp and a few locals were all buried here today at the WWII Memorial in Labuan, which was officiated by the Australian government in June 1953. The bodies were shipped in from Sabah, some with their military tags still glimmering around their necks. Of the 3,908 of them, 2,156 were unidentified. The identified burials number 1,752 of which 1,523 are soldiers, 220 airmen, 5 sailors and 4 civilians (consist of 814 British, 858 Australians, 1 New Zealander, 43 Indian and 36 Malayan). Another 34 Indian soldiers, whose remains were cremated, are commemorated on a memorial in the India Army. They were all given a white headstone each with their names, military positions and death ages engraved on it. Poignant messages from their family members still resonate today with heavy heartaches that would dwell tears in the eyes. The 2,156 war heroes were also given a similar engrave of ‘Known unto God’ – while their bravery may not be known on earth, but they never be forgotten in the eyes of God. The Cross of Sacrifice stood in the middle of the memorial ground. Origin of Text:Text taken from LabuanTourism website.

The POWs of Sandakan, the perished war heroes of the Australian 7th, 9th Divisions, Signal Corps and a few locals were all buried at the WWII Memorial in Labuan, which was officiated by the Australian government in June 1953.

Submitted 8 August 2017 by Daniel Bishop

The loss of HMAS Perth, 1 March 1942



HMAS Perth was built at Portsmouth Naval Dockyard and commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Amphion on 15 June 1936. Purchased by the Australian Government, she was commissioned into the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) on 29 June 1939. The light cruiser displaced 6,830 tons, was 169 metres long, and had a beam of 17.3 metres. Her armament consisted of eight 6-inch guns, eight 4-inch dual purpose guns, a number of automatic anti-aircraft weapons and eight 21-inch torpedo tubes. She also carried a Seagull V aircraft for reconnaissance and spotting duties. Her speed was 32 knots and she carried a complement of 681.

Her early war service was in the Caribbean and the Pacific and she did not reach Australia until 31 March 1940. Until November 1940, the ship was engaged on patrol and escort duties in Australian waters. She then departed for the Mediterranean where she played a minor part in the battle of Matapan. She was involved in the evacuations of Crete and Greece in April and May 1941, in the course of which she was badly damaged by bombing. After repairs, the cruiser was engaged in operations off the coast of Syria before proceeding to Australia for an extended refit. She arrived in Sydney on 12 August.

While the ship was refitting, Captain H. M. L. Waller, DSO and bar, RAN, took command on 24 October 1941. After completion of her refit, Perth operated off eastern Australia on patrol and escort work, visiting New Caledonia and New Guinea. On 14 February 1942 Perth sailed for the Netherlands East Indies, arriving at Batavia (now Jakarta) on 24 February, where she was attacked by Japanese aircraft that day and the next without sustaining any damage. The Perth sailed for Surabaya on 25 February, in company with four Royal Navy ships. On 26 February the ship departed Surabaya in company with the Dutch light cruisers De Ruyter and Java, the heavy cruisers USS Houston and HMS Exeter, and two Dutch, three British and four US destroyers. The squadron, under the command of the Dutch Rear Admiral Karel Doorman, proceeded along the north coast of Madura Island, searching for a Japanese invasion convoy.

The cruise was unsuccessful but, as the ships were preparing to enter Surabaya and refuel, Admiral Doorman received information that the Japanese forces had been sighted to the north. Accordingly, he steamed to intercept. In the ensuing battle of the Java Sea, fought over the night of 27-28 February the Allied force was soundly defeated by a Japanese force which was able to exploit its superiority over the four-nation Allied force in terms of long-range gunnery, torpedoes, night fighting, the freshness of its crews, and its homogeneity. The Dutch cruisers were sunk and Exeter badly damaged, while most of the destroyers were sunk or withdrew as their torpedoes were exhausted. Perth and Houston were able to break off the action with the Japanese and sailed to Tandjung Priok, where they refuelled.

Orders were received for the cruisers to sail through the Sunda Strait for Tjilitjap on Java's south coast. They sailed at 7.00 pm on 28 February and set a course to the west for the Strait, Perth leading, with Houston five cables astern. At 11.06 a vessel was sighted at about five miles range, close to St Nicholas Point. When challenged she proved to be a Japanese destroyer and was immediately engaged. The two cruisers had met the Japanese invasion force assigned to western Java.

Shortly afterwards, other destroyers were sighted to the north and the armament shifted to divided control to allow more than one target to be engaged. Despite this, the enemy destroyers attacked from all directions during the action; it was impossible to engage all targets simultaneously, and so some were able to close to short range. Nevertheless, Perth was to suffer only superficial damage in this phase of the action.

At about midnight it was reported that the cruiser had little ammunition left, so Captain Waller decided to attempt to force a passage through Sunda Strait. He ordered full speed and turned the ship south for Toppers Island. Perth had barely steadied on her new course when a torpedo struck her in the starboard side. The captain ordered the crew to prepare to abandon ship. A few moments later, another torpedo struck just forward of the first hit and Captain Waller gave the order to abandon ship. After five or ten minutes, a third hit torpedo struck well aft on the starboard side, followed shortly after by another on the port. Perth, which had been heeling to starboard, righted herself, then heeled to port and sank at about 12.25 am on 1 March.

Houston, still fighting but ablaze, was also hit by torpedoes and sank shortly afterwards.

The Japanese losses were light with one transport and one minesweeper sunk and several vessels seriously damaged.

Perth's crew abandoned ship between the second and third torpedoes, but it is doubtful if any boats were successfully launched, although many rafts and Carley floats were. During the abandon ship operation the Perth was under fire from many destroyers at close range and many hits were sustained and casualties caused. Many were killed or wounded in the water by the explosion of the last two torpedoes and by shells exploding in the water.

Of the Perth's company of 686, which included four civilian canteen staff and six RAAF personnel for operating and servicing her aircraft, only 218 (including one civilian and two RAAF) were eventually repatriated; the remainder were killed during, or soon after, the action, or died as prisoners of war. Captain Waller was lost with the ship.

VISIT-Website: (AWM) Australian War Memorial;WW2 War History; The Loss of HMAS Perth, 1st March 1942; https://www.awm.gov.au/articles/encyclopedia/perth/loss.