The Tamatsu Maru ( Japanese. 玉 津 丸 ) was a Japanese freighter converted into a depot ship, which was sunk by the US submarine Spadefish on August 19, 1944 , killing around 4,900 people.
history
Construction of the ship began in 1942 at the Mitsubishi Dockyard & Engineering Works shipyard in Nagasaki for the Tokyo shipping company Nippon Yūsen . The keel was laid on November 4, 1942. During construction, the unit was taken over by the Japanese Navy in 1943 and completed as a depot and repair ship for landing craft. The takeover took place on January 20, 1944.
During the Second World War, the ship was used for military purposes. In August 1944, the ship was in convoy HI-71 with soldiers and weapons on the journey from South Korea to the Philippines, where the soldiers on board were supposed to reinforce the Japanese troops stationed there. On August 17th the convoy set off for the last stage from Mako to Manila and on August 19th the convoy split into two parts due to bad weather. On the morning of August 19, the US submarine Spadefish under the command of Lieutenant Commander Gordon W. Underwood torpedoed the Tamatsu Maru and sank the ship at position 17 ° 34 ′ N , 119 ° 24 ′ E , killing 4,755 Japanese soldiers and 135 men of the crew died. Only in the afternoon did the convoy's escort ships arrive at the scene of the accident, but only discovered rubble and about 2,000 floating bodies.
17.566666666667 119.4
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 .
