RIKUGUN HAITOSEN
(Standard Type 1K by Ueda Kihachiro)
IJA Transport DAIGO MARU:
Tabular Record of Movement
© 2011-2017 Bob Hackett
Revision 1
1944:
Habu, Innoshima. Laid down by Hitachi Zosen K. K. Innoshima Zosensho, as Yard No. 2805, a 5,244-ton wartime Standard Type 1K ore-carrier for Osaka
Shosen Kaisha, (OSK) Line of Osaka.
1944:
Launched and named DAIGO MARU.
3 October 1944:
Completed and registered at Osaka.
1944:
The Senpaku Uneikai (Shipping Control Authority) allots DAIGO MARU to the Imperial Army (IJA) as a transport. She is assigned Army No. 5590.
4 January 1945:
DAIGO MARU departs Wakamatsu for Pukow on the Yangtze River near Nanking carrying a full load of railroad ties. Pukow was the southern railway terminus of the line from Tientsin to Pukow with ferry connection to Nanking.
8 January 1945:
Yellow Sea. At about 0115, LtCdr Marion R. DeArellano’s (USNA ‘35) USS BALAO (SS-285) torpedoes DAIGO MARU and gets a hit on her starboard side near No. 3 hold. She floods and in the next 10 minutes is hit by five more torpedoes. Captain Okubo Saburo orders “Abandon Ship”.
At about 0200, DAIGO MARU breaks in two and sinks at 34-37N, 122-12E. 12 crewmen and 14 gunners are KIA. 49 survivors escape in a lifeboat.
Author's Note:
Thanks go to Erich Muehlthaler of Germany.
-Bob Hackett
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