Prison ships bombed by U.S. Navy

 

On December 13, 1944, Uncle Warren and 1600 other POWs were boarded on the Oryoku Maru in Manila Bay for shipment to Japan. On December 14, planes from the USS Hornet bombed the ship as it approached the Japanese naval base in Subic Bay. The ship was unmarked and the pilots had no way of knowing who was aboard. The ship was only crippled, so the planes returned the following day to sink it. The astounding photo above from the Navy shows the sinking ship, POWs in the water, and what appears to be a dive bomber delivering another blow.

A few hundred POWs were killed in the attack and the remaining swam ashore where they were herded up and transported to a different ship.

On December 27, 1944, Warren and the other prisoners were put on the Enoura Maru.  On January 9, 1945, when this ship was docked in a Taiwan harbor, it was once again bombed by the USS Hornet and once again documented by a Navy photographer.

Subsequently, they were put on the Brazil Maru and ultimately reached Japan. Of the 1600 POWs who started on the Oryoku Maru, only 400 survived the hell ships, the bombings, and the prison camps in Japan.