The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru

I’ll be honest. I’ve seen way too many documentaries about World War II. Just when you thought all of the stories have been told about the war, documentarian Fang Li finds one that was in danger of being lost forever in The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru.

Just hours after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese began their takeover of Hong Kong, which at that time was under the custody of England. During the attack, many British soldiers were captured and, as prisoners of war, packed in ships to Japanese labor camps under the false promise that these POWs would live out the rest of the war in the beautiful country of Japan.
One such ship was the Lisbon Maru. It was a Japanese cargo freighter that was reconfigured into a transport for troops, weapons, and prisoners. For the Japanese soldiers and citizens, it offered typical military accommodations. For the POWs, it was a hell hole. Disease ran rampant, with very little light and airflow, while food and water were scarce.

“…the heroism of the Chinese fishermen who hid the POWs for days and ultimately led them back to the U.K.”

On her final voyage in December 1941, the Lisbon Maru was carrying 700 Japanese Army personnel and 1,816 British prisoners of war. Just off Dongji Island, the ship was struck by torpedos from an American submarine. The British POWs were locked into their hold, and a pump was lowered. They were told that if they didn’t pump, they would die, so they worked tirelessly for 36 hours.

Not to spoil the rest of the story, ultimately, a small faction of men survived, only to then face a barrage of Japanese bullets in the water. Ultimately, 380 men would be rescued by dozens of local Chinese fishermen.

The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru follows several interconnected paths related to the story of the survivors. What I provided was essentially the Wikipedia version of the events. The documentary opens with filmmaker Fang Li on the hunt for the fallen vessel using modern technology to locate the ship, as the historical coordinates were wrong. This is just the five-minute opener.