Sinking of the Tsushima Maru
対馬丸事件
On the night of 22 August 1944 the evacuation ship Tsushima Maru, carrying schoolchildren and other evacuees from Okinawa to Kyushu, was torpedoed and sunk by the US submarine Bowfin near Akusekijima; 1,484 victims have been identified by name.
History
After the fall of Saipan in July 1944 the Japanese government decided to evacuate the elderly, women and children from Okinawa to Kyushu and Taiwan. The Tsushima Maru, an ageing cargo ship, left Naha on 21 August 1944 for Nagasaki in convoy with two other evacuation ships and escorts, carrying about 1,788 people including schoolchildren from the national schools of Naha, teachers, general evacuees and crew.
At about 22:12 on 22 August the ship was torpedoed by USS Bowfin north-west of Akusekijima in the Tokara Islands and sank in about ten minutes. Many children were trapped below or lost in the heavy seas; survivors drifted for days on rafts before being picked up or washing ashore on Amami Oshima.
According to the Tsushima Maru Memorial Museum, 1,484 victims had been identified by name as of August 2024, 784 of them schoolchildren; the exact numbers aboard and lost remain uncertain. Survivors were placed under a strict gag order so that the sinking would not impede the evacuation programme, and families in Okinawa learned of the loss only gradually.
The wreck was located on the seabed at a depth of about 870 metres in December 1997. The Tsushima Maru Memorial Museum opened in Naha on 22 August 2004, near the Kozakura no To memorial where a service is held each year.