At 3.22 pm on February 24, 1944, the Japanese ships Ryusei and Tango Maru sailed from Surabaya in Java headed for Ambon in the famous Moluccan spice islands of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia). Between them they had 12,000 men aboard. They included 2,000 Japanese soldiers, over 7,000 Dutch colonial prisoners of war and Romushas (conscripted Indonesian labourers), and 2,865 Indian POWs.
Five days earlier, 2,735 km away, an American submarine called USS Rasher under Lieutenant-Commander William R Laughan had left Fremantle in Australia on its third patrol of the war. They were to meet near Macassar – a strait between the islands of Borneo and Sulawesi – in a fateful encounter, resulting in 8,000 deaths.
This is yet another almost-forgotten episode in the bloody World War II, as the Allied powers led by the United Kingdom, the US and the Soviet Union battled the Axis alliance of Germany and Japan.
Indians became part of the largest voluntary force in history. At least 2.5 million men joined the British Indian Army. But after the British surrendered their colony of Singapore to Japan in February 1942, an estimated 128,000 Allied soldiers were taken prisoner. They included 62,000 Indians.
Having conquered all of South East Asia and large parts of today’s Papua New Guinea, the Japanese forced POWs and civilians to work to fortify these areas. To do so, they were transported in vessels that came to be known as “hell ships” because of the atrocious conditions onboard.
The voyages could last for weeks. In some instances, hundreds died on board.
Besides this, there was the risk of attacks by Allied torpedoes or bombs for whom sinking any Japanese ship was a priority, even if they knew their own men were on board.
The day the Japanese ships Ryusei and Tango Maru left Surabaya, the Allies decoded messages about their plans. Laughan, the commander of the American submarine, was given very precise information. Based on their direction and speed, he knew when and where to intercept them.
The next evening, he was waiting in the Bali Sea. On February 25, 1944, starting at 7.43 pm, having avoided detection by the three Japanese escort ships, the USS Rasher fired four torpedoes at the Tango Maru. The ship sank.
Laughan then assessed the situation and repositioned his submarine. Starting at 9.27 pm, he fired four more torpedoes at Ryusei Maru, sinking it too. All this while, another submarine USS Raton had been along. Laughan signaled to it “apologizing for hogging the show”, according to patrol reports.
At least 3,000 men of the 5,700 aboard Tango died, including Romushas and the Dutch colonial POWs. The Ryusei Maru was carrying 1,244 Japanese troops, 2,865 Indian POWs and 2559 Romushas. Of this total of 6,668 on board, 4,968 men and 31 crew died. Most of the dead would have been Indian POWs and Romushas but no specific spilt is known.
Forty-five days earlier, on January 21,1944, a similar tragedy occurred, when 418 Indian POWs perished in a sea of flames when the Japanese ship Ikoma Maru was torpedoed. Laden with ammunition and gasoline, it exploded.
The captain of the USS Seahorse that had sunk it said the was sea ablaze with gasoline as his submarine surfaced. “All hands [were] given an opportunity to witness the spectacular show and enjoy the unique experience of ‘below-decks-men’ actually seeing the results of their work”, according to the patrol report.
The memory of the Allied dead of the Ikoma Maru and the Tango Maru.is honoured by a plaque at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas in the UK.
Gautam Hazarika is a Singapore-based author whose book on the Indian Army Prisoners of World War II is being published by Penguin India and Pen & Sword UK in 2025.
