MV Awa Maru
From Our Contribution
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| History | |
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| Name | MV Awa Maru |
| Builder/Built | 1942 Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Co. Nagasaki, Japan |
| Type | Ocean Liner |
| Displacement | 11,249 tons |
| Speed | 17 knots |
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| History | |
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| General characteristics | |
Remarks
Built at the southern end of Kyushu island for Nippon Yusen, and completed in March 1943. Requisitioned and refitted for auxiliary use by the Japanese Navy during WW2. In the brief time before she was sunk (contrary to rules of engagement as she was sailing as a hospital ship) in April 1945, she made several voyages between Japan and Singapore and Indo Chinese ports.
Carrying reinforcement troops to the Philippines in August 1944, she was torpedoed, but was able to be beached, and later towed to Singapore where she was repaired before returning to duty in January 1945.
While a voyage corresponding with the voyage in Jack Thorpe's story "Bloody Lucky" is detailed in available records the ship must have undergone significant change from rough usage as he described it as rusted from one end to the other. If this was indeed the ship above, it returned to Japan as part of Convoy Hi-84.
In March 1945 the Awa Maru sailed from Singapore for Japan on the night of 1 Apr 1945 as a hospital ship. However, she was intercepted in the Taiwan Strait by US Submarine Queenfish which mistook her for a destroyer and sank her. Only 1 of the 2,004 crew and allied POWs that she carried survived.