The Tango Maru ( Japanese 丹 後 丸 ) was a Japanese merchant ship that was sunk by the US submarine Rasher on June 25, 1944 , killing around 3,000 people.
history
The ship was built in 1925/26 on the Actiengesellschaft "Vulcan" in Hamburg as Rendsburg and delivered on February 2, 1926 to the client, the German-Australian Steamship Company (DADG). The ship belonged to a trio of identical motor ships for the DADG service to the Dutch East Indies . In the year of delivery, the DADG was taken over by the Hamburg-America Line and the ship continued to operate there in the same service. In 1939 the Rendsburg was interned in Batavia when the Second World War broke out .
The Rasher submarine
On May 10, 1940, the Netherlands confiscated the ship and brought it back into service as Toendjoek under the management of the Nederlandsch Indische Maatschappij voor Zeevaart . On March 2, 1942, the Toendjoek was sunk as a block ship off Tanjung Priok, but was lifted again by Japanese salvagers on December 8 of the same year.
After its repair, the Japanese government operated the ship as a Tango Maru and from then on used it for military purposes. In June 1944 it drove as a transport ship (one of the so-called Hell Ships ) with around 3,500 forced laborers and prisoners of war on board in a convoy from Surabaya to Ambon . The American submarine Rasher sighted the convoy on June 25 at around 5:30 p.m. near Lombok and first sank the Tango Maru at 7:43 p.m. at position 7 ° 41 ′ S , 115 ° 10 ′ E , killing around 3,000 people . Immediately afterwards, the submarine, under the command of Lieutenant Commander Willard Laughon, torpedoed the Ryusei Maru , which sank another 4,998 people.
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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 .
Schmelzkopf, Reinhart: German-Australian Steamship Society Hamburg 1888-1926 . Strandgut, Cuxhaven 1984, ISBN 3-920709-10-1 .
