Sinking of the ENOURA MARU in Takao (Kao-hsiung) on 9th January 1945 discussion

[sladys]

This is a discussion thread for the following file:

Sinking of the ENOURA MARU in Takao (Kao-hsiung) on 9th January 1945

On December 27, 1944 the POWs that survived the attacks on the Oryoku Maru were loaded into the cargo holds of two ships - the Enoura Maru and the Brazil Maru - for the voyage to Takao, Formosa where they arrived on December 31, 1944. On January 6, 1945 the Japanese consolidated all surviving POWs into the holds of the Enoura Maru. On January 9, 1945 the Enoura Maru was still in the harbor at Takao (and moored to the same buoy with a Japanese tanker making them a prime target) when aircraft - again from the USS Hornet - attacked. This time one of the bombs hit the forward hold killing about 350 POWs. The next photo (again taken by USS Hornet aircraft) shows the Enoura Maru during that attack. Mark Kelso has information showing that the Japanese tanker moored to the same buoy with the Enoura Maru is the Kuroshio Maru - another of the Class 2A ships, but not a Hellship.