The Ryūsei Maru ( Japanese. 隆西 丸 ) was a Japanese merchant ship that was sunk on June 25, 1944 by the US submarine Rasher , killing around 5,000 people.
history
The ship was built in 1911 at the Willington Quay yard of the Tyne Iron Shipbuilding Company on the Tyne and delivered to the company A / S Bonheur in March 1911. The ship was commissioned by the Norwegian shipping company Fred Olsen from Christiania ( Oslo ). Henrik Østervold from Christiania bought the ship in 1916 and renamed it Havø . Four years later the Havø was transferred to Henrik Østervold's shipping company in Bergen . After almost two decades, Østervold sold the ship in 1935 to Johan Gran's Far Eastern Steamship Company from Bergen, who continued to operate the ship as Mabuhay II .
The Rasher submarine
In 1938 Matsumoto Masaichi from Kobe bought the ship and named it Ryūsei Maru . During the Second World War, the ship was used for military purposes. In June 1944 it drove as a troop transport with around 6,600 Japanese soldiers on board in a convoy from Surabaya to Ambon . The US submarine Rasher sighted the convoy on June 25 around 17:30 pm on Lombok (Indonesia) and put first the Tango Maru from 19:43 to position 7 ° 41 ' S , 115 ° 10' O , around 3,000 forced laborers and prisoners of war died. Immediately afterwards, the submarine, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Willard Laughon, torpedoed the Ryusei Maru . When it was sunk at position 7 ° 33 ′ S , 115 ° 9 ′ E, another 4,998 people died.
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literature
Hocking, Charles: Dictionary of Disasters at Sea During the Age of Steam: Including Sailing Ships and Ships of War Lost in Action, 1824-1962 . 1st edition. Lloyd's Register of Shipping, London 1969, ISBN 0-900528-03-6 .
