The Sinking of the Arisan Maru

What the Arisan Maru Was

The Arisan Maru belongs to the WWII “hell ship” system—POW transports where men were moved as a labor supply, not protected prisoners. On these voyages, survival was never the priority. The Arisan Maru carried nearly 1,800 American POWs, packed into the ship’s hold with minimal air, sanitation, and medical care. Survivor accounts describe suffocating overcrowding, disease spreading in darkness, and starvation rations that left men too weak to stand. Water was scarce, toilets were overflowing buckets, and bodies could remain among the living for days. The point wasn’t merely neglect—it was a system that treated prisoners as expendable cargo long before any torpedo hit.
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Launching of SS Arisan Maru at Tama Shipyard

Where the Story Unfolded

The Arisan Maru sailed in the MATA-30 convoy from Manila toward Takao, Formosa (Taiwan), through waters that U.S. submarines increasingly targeted in late 1944. The route mattered: it ran into a major interception zone known as “Convoy College,” where multiple submarines gathered ahead of Japanese convoys and attacks could unfold quickly. On October 24, 1944, the Arisan Maru was hit at about 1730 and sank roughly two hours later. Testimony emphasizes that danger came both from the strike and from what followed—confusion, rough seas, and actions that limited escape from below deck. In that setting, a single torpedo hit became a near-total catastrophe.
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Nautical chart of the Luzon Strait

Related Book

The Sinking of the Arisan Maru

The Sinking of the Arisan Maru by Gabriel Corro and Malika Brown explores one of World War II’s least remembered mass tragedies at sea: the October 24, 1944 sinking of the Japanese “hell ship” Arisan Maru. The ship carried 1,782 American POWs from Manila toward Formosa (Taiwan), many held in cargo holds designed for freight—not human beings. In brutal conditions below deck, hunger, dehydration, disease, and overcrowding made survival a daily collapse long before torpedoes struck.

At the center of the narrative is a gripping reconstruction of the MATA-30 convoy attack and the Arisan Maru’s final hours—men fighting through darkness, broken hatches, and rough water to reach debris, makeshift rafts, and a slim chance of rescue. The book also follows what came afterward: the scattered fates of survivors, limited accountability through postwar war-crimes proceedings, and decades of public silence.

Built from survivor testimony, historical research, and a detailed timeline, this is a powerful WWII POW history that shows the tragedy was not an accident—it was the predictable outcome of a system that treated prisoners as disposable labor.