SS Rakuyo Maru

SS Rakuyo Maru (楽洋丸) was a passenger cargo ship built in 1921 by the Mitsubishi Shipbuilding & Engineering Company, Nagasaki for Nippon Yusen Kisen Kaisha.

Service history
The troopship was part of Convoy HI-72 and transporting 1317 Australian and British prisoners of war (POWs) from Singapore, when it was torpedoed and sunk in the Luzon Strait by USS Sealion (SS-315) on 12 September 1944. A total of 1159 POWs died as a result of the sinking. On 15 September, the Sealion and other submarines who had participated in the attack returned to the area and rescued 63 surviving POWs; four died before they could be landed at Tanapag Harbor, Saipan, in the Mariana Islands.