The Toyama Maru ( Japanese 富山 丸 ) was a Japanese merchant ship that was sunk on June 29, 1944 by the US submarine Sturgeon , killing around 5,400 people.
history
The Sturgeon submarine
The ship was built in 1915 at the Mitsubishi Dockyard & Engineering Works yard in Nagasaki and delivered to the Tokyo shipping company Nippon Yūsen in June 1915 . In 1935/36 the shipping company Nan'yō Kaiun ( 南洋 海運 ) from Tokyo acquired the ship and in 1937/38 the Toyama Maru was transferred to the shipping company Ono Shōji ( 小野 商 事 ), also based in Osaka . During the Second World War, the ship was used for military purposes. In June 1944, the ship was a troop transport with about 6,000 soldiers of the mixed 44th Japanese Brigade and extensive gasoline supplies on the journey from Kyūshū to Okinawa, where the soldiers on board were to reinforce the Japanese troops for the impending US invasion. The US submarine Sturgeon , commanded by Lieutenant Commander Charlton Lewis Murphy, torpedoed and sank the ship near the Nansei Islands at position 27 ° 47 ' N , 129 ° 5' E , killing around 5,400 people.
27.783333333333 129.08333333333
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 .
