SS Shinyo Maru

Shinyo Maru was a Japanese Cargo steamer during the Second World War. She was one of the hell ships, used to transport prisoners of war. She had served under a number of other names under a long career.

Career
She originally started life as the SS Clan Mackay, built on the River Clyde for the Clan Line. She sailed with them until sold in 1913 to the Adelaide Steamship Company, which renamed her Ceduna. She was again sold in 1924 to a company in Shanghai which renamed her Tung Tuck. She was renamed Chang Teh in 1937, and was sold to Greece later that year. She sailed for her new owners under the name Pananis, until seized by the Japanese at Shanghai in 1941 and renamed Shinyo Maru.

Sinking
The Allies intercepted a message about the Shinyo Maru and, thinking it was carrying enemy soldiers, the USS Paddle attacked it on September 7, 1944 off the coast of Mindanao. There were 750 American prisoners of war aboard. Some Japanese guards shot prisoners as they struggled from the holds or were in the water; 688 died when the ship sank, leaving only 82 survivors; 47 of 52 Japanese guards died.

A December 1944 annotation in US military records indicates that an intelligence failure helped contribute to the mis-target of the Japanese transport ship filled with US POWs by the US submarine. "[A] note was added to the message of September 6 that Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC) interpreted as ""SHINYOO MARU (750 troops for Manila via Cebu." In pencil was written: "FRUEF (31 Dec '44) gets 750 Ps/W"! FRUPAC misinterpreted this crucial part of the message with fatal consequences."

On September 7, 2000, 14 survivors gathered at Jacksonville Naval Air Station for the eighth, and final, formal survivors reunion.

Survivors' accounts

 * John J. Morrett, Soldier-Priest (1993). Also see
 * Victor Mapes, The Butchers, the Baker: The World War II Memoir of a United States Army Air Corps Soldier Captured by the Japanese in the Philippines (2000)
 * Charles Vance Claybourn, The Claybourn Genealogical Society