The Sinking of the Junyo Maru
The Japanese cargo ship "Junyo Maru" was en route from Batavia to Sumatra. On Monday September 18, 1944, torpedoes were fired by the British submarine H. M. S. Tradewind. There was no way that the submarine commander could have known what cargo this Japanese ship was carrying.
On board the 5065 ton vessel were cramped, apart from the crew and Japanese guards, 2300 Dutch, British, American and Australian POW's and 4200 Javanese slave laborers (romushas, who sold themselves as laborers for five Dutch guilders) They were all bound for work on the 220km Sumatra Railway Line between Pakan Baru and Muaro.
Of the 6500 reluctant passengers, some 5620 perished in the waters off the coast of southwest Sumatra, making this the largest, yet most forgotten maritime disaster of World War II. At final roll call 680 prisoners of war and 200 romushas survived the disaster. Had the Japanese played by the rules this disaster might have been prevented. According to the Geneva Convention, prisoners of war are to be transported under the Red Cross flag.
The price of "survival" for the 880 that made the shore was employment on the railway line. Many of them did not see the end of the war. The overall survival rate for this "death-railway" was about sixty-six percent for POW's and an estimated twenty percent for romushas. About one hundred Dutch nationals survived the sinking of the Junyo Maru and ten of these died on the railway.
* For more on the Junyo Maru, survivors stories, pictures, H.M.S. Tradewind and the submarine commander report, go to....
www.omen.com.au/~vanderkp/junyopg1.html
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