Eighty years after the sinking of the hell ship, Ōyoku Maru in December 1944, the DPAA took a bold, multi-year recovery expedition into the Philippine Sea. The Japanese hell ship was unknowingly bombed by the US in December 1944, resulting in over 1,600 prisoners of war going down with the ship, of which approximately 250 Americans are still unaccounted for. The USNS Salvor is the base of naval divers and forensic anthropologists conducting a recovery effort at 90 feet under conditions of zero visibility and tangled in crushed metal. The effort is authorised under the Sunken Military Craft Act and represents the US’s commitment to provide the most thorough possible accounting for the soldiers who suffered the worst maritime conditions of the Pacific War.
Tragedy of the Hell Ship Ōryoku Maru
According to US Naval History, in December 1944, the Ōryoku Maru, which was one of Japan’s infamous ‘Hell Ships,’ was carrying more than 1,600 Allied prisoners of war when it was attacked by US Navy aircraft from the USS Hornet. Unaware that their own countrymen were locked in the dark and stifling holds, American pilots mounted 17 separate air strikes over a period of three days. The Naval History and Heritage Command’s records describe chaos and madness in the lower decks as extreme dehydration and suffocation took their toll before the ship was finally brought to rest on the bottom of Subic Bay.
Pentagon ’s high-precision search for 250 missing Americans
The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) has sent a specialised team to the Philippine Sea to start the complex process of excavating the Ōryoku Maru. Working from the USNS Salvor, a rescue and salvage ship, fifteen divers are working at depths of about 90 feet to try to recover remains that have been trapped for over 80 years, especially the 250 Americans who were lost. The site represents a ‘gnarled mass of steel’ covered by extensive layers of river silt, which renders underwater visibility close to zero, necessitating a high-precision forensic dredging to separate biological evidence from the wreckage.
Legal protections under the Sunken Military Craft Act
The recovery is strictly regulated by the Sunken Military Craft Act (SMCA) of 2004, which bestows the United States ‘protected sovereign status’ on its sunken military craft and the remains of its service personnel, regardless of whose waters it lies within. This federal law ensures that the Ōryoku Maru is a protected site and that any unauthorised salvage or looting is prevented. The mission is a formal diplomatic partnership with the Philippine government in order to fulfil the policy of the ‘Fullest Possible Accounting’ with regard to personnel who are missing.
