The remains of approximately 250 American prisoners of war (POWs) are believed to still be buried in the grave. oryoku maruWhich began life as a civilian Japanese passenger ship before being requisitioned for the transport of troops and prisoners and ultimately sunk at sea in 1944.
The Pentagon’s Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) is coordinating with U.S. Navy sailors aboard the rescue ship USNS. lifeboatWhere a team of 15 expert divers dived into Subic Bay, 35 miles (55 kilometers) northwest of Manila in the Philippines, to begin the search last month. This initial phase of the mission, operated in partnership with the Philippine government, will last until April – but the entire effort is expected to take years.
DPAA called it one of the agency’s “largest and most complex recovery efforts to date” in an official statement, with a team of forensic anthropologists waiting at DPAA’s laboratory in Honolulu to analyze the recovered remains.
“This is a national priority in the United States,” John Bird, DPAA’s director of scientific analysis, told the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
“Significant Operational Challenges”
oryoku maruIts wreck lies just 550 yards (503 m) from the beach at a maximum depth of only 90 feet (27.4 m), but this proximity is deceiving. For starters, the wreck was deliberately detonated decades ago to avoid damaging passing commercial ships. Second, the clouds of silt brought up by the flow of the nearby river added serious visibility problems to the already damaged steel pile, which DPAA divers would have to work on.
According to Bird, “The recovery effort presents significant operational challenges that will require the team to employ advanced underwater recovery and identification techniques.”
The DPAA scientist added, “It may take several missions to complete the excavation, sometimes with delays due to weather, schedules, or other factors,” making it a process that could last months or even years.
The current Oryoku Maru mission, as the DPAA said in its press release, “underscores the enduring alliance between the United States and the Philippines,” which has generously supported this recovery from their territorial waters.
“Our success depends on strong partnerships and unwavering respect for the fallen,” U.S. Army Capt. Barrett Breland, DPAA team leader for the mission, said in the statement.
Breland said the mission “represents our solemn commitment to providing the families and the nation with as complete an accounting as possible,” although it is unclear what remains are likely to survive after 80 years of gruesome decay. The agency’s past work has proven tricky, including thorny cases of “mixed group remains” that required DNA analysis and new legal hurdles after similar missions to Japan to recover POW remains. Enoura Maru Prison ship.
A bloody ruin from a bloody war
American airmen take off from the deck of the USS hornet and uss cabot According to SCMP reports, they had no idea that they were bombing a floating prison containing 1,556 of their cramped, captive countrymen and at least 60 more Allied combatants. but like oryoku maru Rushed to seek shelter in Subic Bay, American warplanes launched 17 air attacks on the ship over three days in December 1944 – an attack so brutal that it encouraged the supporting convoy of Japanese warships to flee.
Japanese guards indiscriminately mowed down crowds of escaping POWs and, according to the SCMP, some survivors later recounted horrifying memories of blood dripping from the deck into the hold below from recently killed Japanese anti-aircraft gunners.
A Pulitzer-winning history book covering this episode, by John Toland Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1936–1945cites a particularly shocking official report from a colonel aboard the ship. “Many people lost their minds and crawled around in the dark armed with knives, trying to kill people in order to drink their blood,” the colonel wrote. About 1,290 survivors reached shore, the rest remain unaccounted for to this day.
According to the U.S. Naval History and Heritage Command, roughly 134 Japanese “hell ships,” as American forces colloquially named them, carried an estimated 126,000 Allied prisoners during World War II.
watery graves
Decades ago, the discovery of a sunken Japanese military sub in the depths of Pearl Harbor sparked an intriguing legal debate over the official ownership of such sunken ships. The US solution, a bit of maritime law, was the passage of the Sunken Military Craft Act (SMCA) in 2004.
According to the SMCA, at least, “sunken US military ships and aircraft” now enjoy “preserved sovereign status and permanent US ownership” in perpetuity. This law applies to approximately 1,700 US military ships in oceans around the world, making it illegal for foreign countries or enterprising adventurers (like you) to go souvenir-hunting from them.
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