A Brief History
On September 18, 1944, the British submarine, HMS Tradewinds, torpedoed and sank the Jun’yo Maru, a Japanese cargo ship transformed to carry prisoners. Over 5000 people died in the tragedy, of which 1377 were Dutch prisoners of war, another 64 victims were British and Australian prisoners of war, and 8 were American prisoners of war. Most of the rest of the victims were Javanese slave laborers, around 4200 of them.
Digging Deeper
Obviously, the skipper of the Tradewinds did not know the targeted ship was carrying prisoners, as the Japanese did not mark POW ships in any special way. The Jun’yo Maru was built in Scotland in 1913 and displaced only 5100 tons, with a length of 405 feet and a beam of 53 feet. Never meant to carry more than a couple dozen crew members, the ship had been rigged with extra bamboo decks and cages to cram as many prisoners as possible onto the ship.
These “Hell Ships” were common as the Japanese tried to move around prisoners to keep them from being liberated by the advancing allies. The crowded and unsanitary conditions on these ships was aggravated by the cruelty of the Japanese, beating, torturing and starving the prisoners on a regular basis. It is estimated that over 20,000 Allied prisoners of war died on these ships during World War II.
Although over 600 prisoners survived the sinking, they ended up in slave labor camps where death was an all too common result of starvation, disease, and overwork. It is alleged that Allied planners knew of the ships carrying prisoners (see Wikipedia article, “Hell Ship”) but sank them anyway to deny the Japanese important cargo. Of course, other authors place the blame squarely on the Japanese for failing to mark such ships with a red cross.
The massive nature of this disaster was later eclipsed in the European theater as German ships such as the Wilhelm Gustloff and Goya were sunk with even greater loss of life. The term “Hell Ship” was indeed applied to German ships carrying Allied prisoners, but there was no real comparison with the miserable conditions on the Japanese vessels. The term “Hell Ship” was first used during the American Revolutionary War, especially regarding the HMS Jersey. British use of broken down ships as floating prisons resulted in the deaths of over 11,000 American prisoners of war.
Question for students (and subscribers): If indeed it is true that the Allies sank POW ships knowingly in order to deny their cargo to the Japanese, do you think that was the right thing to do or not? Please tell us what you believe the proper action or inaction should have been. Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Morris, Jack. HELL SHIPS-1. Amazon Digital Services LLC, 2011.
Pearson, Judith. Belly of the Beast: A POW’s Inspiring True Story of Faith, Courage, and Survival aboard the Infamous WWII Japanese Hell Ship Oryoku Maru. Audible Studios, 2014.
The featured image in this article, a photograph by Walter Edwin Frost of Japanese cargo ship Jun’yō Maru, is in the public domain in the United States, because it was published in the United States between 1924 and 1977 without a copyright notice. See Commons:Hirtle chart for further explanation.
<span class="dsq-postid" data-dsqidentifier="11787 https://www.historyandheadlines.com/?p=11787">28 Comments
It is upsetting to think that POW’s of Allied troops were killed by their own side because the POW’s were secretly located on enemy ships. My hope is that the Allies simply did not know of the situation, and it was an accident.
The “hell ship” reminds me of the concentration camps that the Germans used in WW2. Sick brutaual conditions where diease and abusing happened. It was unfortunate that the British sunk a ship that was just prisoners of war but at a time of drastic measures calls for drastic moves.
It’s a shame that American POWs were killed in this event but like the article said it was very hard to figure out prisoner ships or “hell ships” because they never seemed to label them, so its hard to put this on the skipper, but definitely a sad story.
It makes you sick to think how badly our prisoners were treated by the Japanese. It was also sad that many died by their own allied ships sinking them. I agree with Peyton and the article that they were being sunk due to the Japanese not labeling the ships with the red cross. I think that is truly a war crime if they weren’t labeling the ships.
That must have been a bummer when the British found out that they actually killed their own allies. I do not believe I would have wanted to be among the 600 surviving due to how poorly the Japanese treated their prisoners.
i’ve never heard of these Japanese hell ships but they sound horribly awful. The article mentions the ships were only meant to hold a few dozen but had extra decks and cages crammed on deck to accommodate more prisoners. These prisoners were starved, beaten, and tortured; i can’t imagine what they went through! Its almost as awful that these ships were knowingly sunk by the British even though they were full of prisoners of war and Japanese slaves. Even though the british sunk the hell ships to keep the labor out of Japanese hands i don’t agree that this was the correct action. I think rescue missions should have been top priority.
These Hell ships seem to be appropriately named. They are another example of the cruelty and inhumanity shown during wartime. If the British Sub did know of the POWs on the Japanese Hell ship, I do not think it was the right move to sink them.
It is crazy to imagine how inhumane the Japanese were with their POWs. I read the book Unbroken this summer and some of the scenes depicted were absolutely atrocious. It was a terrible way for the Allied POWs to live.
I think that the Tradewinds had no way of knowing that the ship was mainly carrying prisoners, otherwise they never would have fired on it. The fact that there were American, British, and Dutch prisoners on board would have caused an outrage if it was determined that the attack was deliberate.
Reading this article made me wonder how many of the 600 who survived that day to go on to POW camps wished they had died. I’m not sure if the boat was hit on purpose knowing it had POW on board. If it was known, I’m not sure I believe it was justified for the reasons presented above, however it stopped a lot of peoples suffering.
No wonder they were called Hell Ships, the conditions were awful. The prisoners on the Hell Ships could not catch a break either. Even though the ship sank some of the prisoners that were in the water were still sent to slave camps.
If the Hell Ship was not appropriately marked, then I believe the HMS Tradewinds did not intentionally shoot it down. Given they had Allied POWs on board and the loss of life was so prevalent in those countries already, you would hope that they would value their people more than the amount of Japanese supplies on board.
I think that the Allies didn’t know that this ship (and others probably torpedoed) were carrying these prisoners. Like the famous saying “don’t judge a book by its cover”, it really could be a guessing game as to what was in those ships. Precaution prevailed and the ship was sunken, unfortunately to the heavy loss of life.
Honestly, the cruelty and brutality of the Japanese during the war is sickening. I can’t believe that people could do this to each other.
I believe the Allies did not know this ship was carrying prisoners. The conditions on this ship sounded horrible! No wonder why it was called a hell ship. Would the British still have attacked the ship if they knew it was a prisoner ship and also knew some of their allies were on it?
These Hell Ships must have been terrifying for the prisoners of war. The conditions of these ships is unimaginable, with no sanitation and little to no food. If the prisoners did not die on these ships, then they most probably died from the slave labor that they endured elsewhere.
Had the ships been marked with a red cross would it have made a difference? If that was the case, the Japanese could mark all their boats with a red cross as a decoy to transfer cargo. The allies could not trust the axis powers about anything in World War II.
I cannot imagine being stuck on one of the hell ships. Being a prisoner in war had to have been terrible. My great grandpa was a prisoner of war for months during WWII. I believe that the allies may have known that their were prisoners of the ships but couldn’t be sure, so they sank them anyways. Personally if it was me I would rather be killed like this then suffer in the prisoner camps.
I can not imagine these hell ships, the name definitely makes sense and to be trapped on there I can imagine you would go crazy. Sad to think even if they survived the ship sinking they were then just sent to a slave camp.
No, I do not think it’s right to sink POW ships, as they are prisoners, not condemned to death.
These hell ships seem downright brutal. The horrific things that the Japanese did during the war is besides me. While I do not think it was right to sink the ship, I also do not think the Allies knew that prisoners were on board.
Cannot even imagine the conditions on these hell ships.
I think it is a great thing that the British sunk this ship, but a terrible tragedy that the prisoners of war had to go down with it.
The sinking of the HMS Tradewinds submarine is a tragic story. I believe that the sinking happened mainly because of poor planning. Overloading the ship when it was only meant to carry less than a couple dozen crew members was not a smart idea. I wonder if the Allied planners did not know that the ship was carrying prisoners like they claimed or if they actually knew and then lied about it. Either way, I do not think that sinking the submarine was the right way to go about the situation.
Another reason why i am happy i was born when I was.
The people on these “Hell Ships” basically had three options: be tortured and starved on the ships, go to a slave camp or die somewhere in between. The Allied powers that were captured and taken on these Japanese ships did not have a happy ending.
Well, these POWs were suffering. Perhaps torpedoing the ship ended their misery. Whether the British knew about the ship or not, the Japanese are the ones to blame for this.
I would have to agree with Matt. Even though they did not know it was a POW ship, maybe the ship sinking was a good thing for these prisoners. It put them out of their misery on this “Hell Ship.”