SS Ural Maru
 Postcard of Ural Maru in the 1930s
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Empire of Japan | |
| Name | Ural Maru |
| Port of registry | Japan |
| Builder | Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyards |
| Yard number | 1-452 |
| Laid down | 1 May 1928 |
| Launched | 15 December 1928 |
| Completed | 30 March 1929 |
| Fate | Sunk, 27 September 1944 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type |
|
| Tonnage | 6,377 GRT |
| Length | 123.32 m (404.6 ft) p-p |
| Beam | 16.76 m (55.0 ft) |
| Draught | 10.05 m (33.0 ft) |
| Propulsion | steam turbines, 2 screws, 6,658 ihp (4,965 kW) |
| Speed |
|
| Notes | Passengers: 65 (1st class), 130 (2nd class), 583 (3rd class) |
Ural Maru (うらる丸, Uraru-Maru) was a 6,377-ton Japanese merchant vessel, used as a transport ship and hospital ship during World War II. She was torpedoed and sunk with the loss of some 3,700 lives[citation needed] on 27 September 1944.
History
Ural Maru was a combined cargo/passenger vessel owned and operated by Osaka Shosen (the predecessor to
Her civilian career was relatively uneventful, although she was damaged in Osaka by a typhoon in 1934 [1]
In 1937, after the start of the Second Sino-Japanese War, Ural Maru was requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Army and converted into a hospital ship from 13 October 1937 to February 1938, returning sick and wounded soldiers from the front back to Japan.
Ural Maru was briefly returned to commercial service, but was requisitioned again by the Imperial Japanese Army in November 1941, and used primarily as a military transport to carry troops and military supplies from the Army’s primary staging area of
On 3 April 1943, when evacuating 50 wounded soldiers from
On her last voyage, Ural Maru had departed Singapore bound for
Ural Maru was torpedoed in the South China Sea and sunk on 27 September 1944 by the American submarine USS Flasher (SS-249) approximinately 240 kilometres (150 mi) west of Luzon at coordinates (15°40′N 117°18′E / 15.667°N 117.300°E)[4]
See also
- List by death toll of ships sunk by submarines
- List of maritime disasters in World War II
- Hikari Kikan
Notes
- ^ "JAPAN: Juggernaut of Air". Time. 1 October 1934.
- ISBN 9780765617774. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
- ^ Benegal; The INA cadets on board the Ural Maru were: (Malayans of Indian parentage) Narayanan, Bishan Singh, Navaratnam, Ghosh, Robert Prosper, Ranjit Das; (Burmese of Indian parentage) Benegal, Gandhi Das, Dutta, Bimol Deb.
- ^ Jordan
References
- Benegal, Ramesh (2009). Burma to Japan with Azad Hind: A War Memoir 1941–1944. Lancer. ISBN 978-1-935501-11-4.
- Earhart, David C. (2008). Certain victory: images of World War II in the Japanese media. ME Sharpe. ISBN 978-0-7656-1776-7.
- Jordan, Roger W (2006). The World's Merchant Fleets, 1939: The Particulars And Wartime Fates of 6,000 Ships Warship Losses of World War Two. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-959-2.
External links
- Maritime Disasters of World War II. "Burma to Japan with Azad Hind - A War Memoir" (Lancer Publishers, New Delhi, copyright Meera R. Benegal, 2009).
- Tabular Record of Movement (Japanese)
