Hell Ship

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The term Hell Ship refers to any of the ships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy to transport Allied prisoners of war out of the Philippines, Hong Kong and Singapore during World War II. The POWs would be taken to Japan, Taiwan, Manchuria, or Korea to be used as forced labor. In Japanese, they are now known as Jigoku sen (地獄船), meaning the same.

As Allied forces closed in, the Japanese began transferring POWs by sea. Similar to conditions on the Bataan Death March, prisoners were often crammed into cargo holds with little air, food or water for journeys that would last weeks. Many died due to asphyxia, starvation or dysentery. Some POWs in the heat, humidity, lack of oxygen, food, and water became delirious and unresponsive to their environment. Unlike weapons transports which were marked as Red Cross ships, these prisoner transports were unmarked and were targeted by Allied submarines, unaware of their real purpose. The Junyō Maru was the worst of these, where 5,640 out of 6,520 POWs died after being sunk.