As I wrote at The Rescue of Australian Prisoners of War following US attack on Japanese ships during WWII, on 12th September 1944 at 5am, the submarines USS Pampanito, USS Sealion II and USS Growler attacked a Japanese convoy of eight vessels with PoWs onboard.
USS Sealion II
The Japanese vessels in the convoy comprised of the Kachidoki Maru, the Rakuyo Maru, two oil tankers, two cruisers, a corvette and another small naval vessel. Both the Rakuyo Maru and the Kachidoki Maru were hit by two US torpedoes and sank, killing some 1000 PoW.
The Kachidoki Maru (formerly the American ship President Harrison)
and the Rakuyo Maru
The holds of the Rakuyo Maru were laden with rubber and kapok (silky fibres from the seeds of the kapok tree, used as a filling for mattresses, pillows, life preservers, and sleeping bags and as insulation). There were 900 POWs onboard the Kachidoki Maru and 1300 onboard the Rakuyo Maru. Everyone on the Rakuyo Maru escaped injury from the torpedo strikes. Despite that, some 1000 POW died because of the attacks on the convoy (543 Australians, including 25 South Australians). POW on the Rakuyo Maru included 41 of the 329 survivors from HMAS Perth (I) (which sank at the entrance to Sunda Strait after being attacked by the Japanese fleet).
A Leander class cruiser similar to HMAS Perth (I)
(Source: "The Encyclopedia of Ships")
The Rakuyo Maru sank quickly. The PoWs knocked any Japanese personnel into the water and launched some lifeboats for their own use. Not everyone, however, made it into a lifeboat at all. They had to cling to any kind of floating raft-like object. The crew of a Japanese destroyer machine-gunned those onboard one of the lifeboats. A Japanese ship picked up any Japanese personnel but ignored any PoWs. POWs were left drifting in the sea. Other Japanese ships picked up PoWs on other lifeboats. PoWs were burned by aviation fuel in the water. They found that the bunker oil helped to relieve the burning pain. The sludge from the heavy bunker oil also helped to protect their skin from the hot sun over the next few days. The PoWs were threatened by sharks, but the oil kept the sharks at bay.
The USS Pampanito and the USS Sea Lion II both returned some days later to rescue PoWs from both the Kachidoki Maru and the Rakuyo Maru. It seems that the USS Sea Lion II rescued 54 POWs, whilst the USS Pampanito rescued more than 70 (possibly 92), but two of them died.
USS Sea Lion II
Two more submarines were despatched from Pearl Harbor to rescue more POWs, the USS Barb and the USS Queenfish. They found another 32 POWs between them but, again, two of them died. On 17th Sept 1944, the USS Barb rescued 14 POW, pulling them from the water with only hours left to live. All of them were covered in oil and clinging to debris. There were ten Australians and four British rescued by the USS Barb.
USS Barb
Just one of the ten Australians was from South Australia. He was the last man pulled from the water. He was Private Murray Thomson of the 2/2 Reserve Motor Transport Company (Adelaide).
USS Barb
USS Queenfish
All four submarines rescued a total of 152 PoWs, whilst the Japanese rescued some more of them. A Japanese destroyer rescued 650 POWs from lifeboats and took them to Japan. 150 of them were from the Rakuyo Maru and 500 of them were from the Kachidoki Maru. Eight of them were originally from HMAS Perth (I).
Only 152 PoWs out of a total of over 2000 prisoners were eventually picked up by the US submarines. There were 717 Australian prisoners amongst the 1300 PoWs onboard the Rakuyo Maru and only 174 of them survived the US submarine attack. 92 of them were rescued by the USS Pampanito, whilst the other 82 were picked up by a Japanese destroyer.
The submarines took the PoWs to their mothership which then took them on to the South Pacific Island of Saipan where the Americans had set up a strike base. The PoWs were eventually taken to Brisbane where they disembarked on 3rd December 1944. Each PoW eventually returned to their respective home State.
A group of PoW about to be taken aboard USS Pampanito
(All of the above photos come from a collection that I have on file - source unknown)
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