World War II 'hell ship' with over 1,000 prisoners found in Philippines

Divers have found the wreck of the Hofuku Maru off Luzon in the Philippines. The Japanese freighter sank in 1944 with over 1,200 Allied POWs; a digitised military record finally solved the mystery. On 21 September 1944, the Hofuku Maru was sailing as the second ship in a Japanese convoy off the western coast of Luzon. On board were 1,289 British and Dutch prisoners of war, many of them already weakened after being forced to work on the so‑called Burma–Thailand “Death Railway”. The conditions were extreme. There was no light, inadequate ventilation, no sanitary facilities and food and water rations that barely allowed them to survive. The ship carried no markings to indicate it was transporting prisoners. When aircraft from the US Navy’s Task Force 38 attacked the convoy, they launched their torpedoes at what they viewed as a legitimate military target. One struck the hull of the Hofuku Maru. The ship broke in two and sank in less than three minutes, with up to 1,000 prisoners still trapped in the holds. Those who managed to swim to shore were recaptured by Japanese forces. Of the 1,289 prisoners on board, 1,047 died. For eight decades, the wreck remained undiscovered. Post‑war records were fragmentary and contradictory, Allied attack reports gave only approximate coordinates, and survivors’ testimonies differed on basic details. The families of more than a thousand dead soldiers had nowhere to go to remember them. The document that changed everything More than 130 cargo ships and ocean liners were converted by the Japanese Empire to transport prisoners between forced‑labour camps in Southeast Asia. Of the more than 125,000 Allied prisoners shipped on these vessels, around 20,000 died during the voyages. The prisoners themselves called them “hellships”. Despite the scale of what happened, their story remains one of the least‑known episodes of the Second World War. The breakthrough came in 2025, when researcher John Duresky, a collaborator with the Hellships Memorial Foundation, found a digitised Japanese document that no one had examined in detail. Written by officers aboard the convoy’s flagship, the text included a timeline and a map of the attack stating that the Hofuku Maru was the second ship in the formation when it was hit and broken in two. By cross‑referencing that information with the USS Bunker Hill’s action report, the team concluded that the wreck had to lie more than 50 kilometres south of the area where historians had been searching up to that point. “We were absolutely stunned to discover that Japanese sources contained information on where they had attacked the convoy and which ships were hit,” said Randy Anderson, founder of the foundation. “It was the definitive proof.” Five dives and a three‑dimensional model With the new coordinates, a team made up of television explorer Josh Gates, underwater imaging specialist Evan Kovacs and maritime archaeologist Calvin Mires deployed sonar equipment off the province of Zambales. The wreck was located at a depth of around 50 metres, a few kilometres off the western coast of Luzon. Five deep technical dives were carried out. Volcanic ash from Mount Pinatubo, which erupted in 1991, covered parts of the site, but the team took hundreds of photographs and built a three‑dimensional photogrammetric model. The size of the hull, the position of the masts and the layout of the holds matched the shipyard’s original plans. The wreck appeared to be broken in two, or into three sections according to some team members, which fitted both the American and Japanese accounts of its sinking. During the dives, human remains were found among the debris, making the site a war grave protected by international conventions. The exact coordinates have not been made public in order to safeguard the wreck. The Netherlands has announced that it will work with other countries to find a way to honour the victims, while the Hellships Memorial Foundation will start reaching out to locate the relatives of those who died. Five hellship wrecks remain undiscovered. The discovery of the Hofuku Maru does not close the chapter, but it does allow prisoners’ families to know where their ancestors lie and to let them rest in peace 80 years after the sinking of the Hofuku Maru.