On September 18, 1944, the British submarine, HMS Tradewinds, torpedoed and sank the Jun'yo Maru, a Japanese cargo ship transformed to carry prisoners. Over 5000 people died in the tragedy, of which 1377 were Dutch prisoners of war, another 64 victims were British and Australian prisoners of war, and 8 were American prisoners of war. Most of the rest of the victims were Javanese slave laborers, around 4200 of them.
Digging Deeper
Obviously, the skipper of the Tradewinds did not know the ship was carrying prisoners, as the Japanese did not mark POW ships in any special way. The Jun'yo Maru was built in Scotland in 1913 and displaced only 5100 tons, with a length of 405 feet and a beam of 53 feet. Never meant to carry more than a couple dozen crew members, the ship had been rigged with extra bamboo decks and cages to cram as many prisoners as possible onto the ship.
