This blog is devoted to the pair of eBooks Hell Ships. This true accounting of the gross mishandling of military prisoners of war by the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines begins in the days before the Pearl Harbor attack in 1941 and concludes in Japan with the military tribunals in 1945. This reporting of the atrocities committed by the Japanese escort guards in the camps and on the three prison ships is supported by eyewitness accounts, military records, and court documents and testimony given during the trials of the many war criminals.

Book 1 begins with the movement of the New Mexico 200th Coast Artillery Regiment to the Philippines. War breaks out with the Japanese forces landing and attacking as far south as Manila. The men of the 200th are swept up in the battles and surrender on orders from Corregidor Fortress. The Death March follows and the 200th joins others in the many prison camps. General MacArthur lands in the south but too late to save the men of the 200th from being shipped to Japan as slave laborers. The prisoners are packed into the holds of the Hell Ship, Oryoku Maru, and begin their fateful voyage.

Book 2 takes the reader inside the holds of the Oryoku Maru as she is attacked by U.S. Navy aircraft. The ship’s master fights with the escort guard to get the prisoners on deck so they might swim ashore. The prisoners are taken to a second Hell Ship and transported to the Island of Taiwan. Sunk at Taiwan, the few survivors are moved to yet a third ship and the last leg of their journey ends in southern Japan. The surviving prisoners are separated into work parties until war’s end. This book concludes with the court trials of the Japanese escort guards and others. Of the 1,619 POWs only 271 return to the United States.