SS Kachidoki Maru

Kachidoki Maru was built in 1920 as Wolverine State, one of seven Design 1095 ships, by the United States Shipping Board at New York Shipbuilding Corporation, Camden, New Jersey. Renamed President Harrison in 1922, she was operated by Swayne & Hoyt Lines on a service connecting the United States West Coast to Brazil and Argentina with the Pacific-Argentine-Brazil Line. In 1923, the ship was transferred to the Dollar Steamship Lines and sailed on their "round-the-world passenger service" until 1938. Chartered by the United States Army in December 1941 to evacuate 4th Marines from Shanghai, she was beached on the return trip for additional evacuation, but salvaged and repaired by the Japanese, which renamed her Kakko Maru and later Kachidoki Maru.[2]

The troopship was part of convoy HI-72, transporting some 950 Australian and British prisoners of war (POWs) and 1,095 Japanese from Singapore to Formosa (Taiwan). Another ship in the convoy was SS Rakuyō Maru with 1,317 Allied POWs on board.[2]

On the morning of 12 September 1944, the convoy was attacked in the Luzon Strait by a wolfpack consisting of three US submarines: Growler, Pampanito and Sealion. Rakuyō Maru was torpedoed by Sealion and sunk with 1,159 POWs killed.
Kachidoki Maru was torpedoed and sunk by Pampanito. Japanese destroyers rescued most Japanese and 520 British prisoners from Kachidoki Maru. 431 prisoners of war, 45 troops and 12 crewmen were killed. The survivors were transferred to Kibutsu Maru and taken to Japan.[3]

• IWM : The Sinking of Prisoner of War Transport Ships in the Far East
• JAPAN PARTY RANGOON, MARCH 1944 A STORY OF SURVIVAL by C. "Mike" Carmody, Crewmember of USS Pampanito (SS383)