YUSOSEN!



(MOJI MARU prewar photo courtesy of Berend van der Wal)

IJN MOJI MARU:

Tabular Record of Movement

© 2008-2020 Bob Hackett and Peter Cundall.

Revision 1

December 1935:
Wakamatsu. Laid down at Tochigi Shipyard as a 318-ton coastal tanker for Tochiki Shoji K. K., Kobe.

February 1936:
Launched and named MOJI MARU.

6 March 1936:
Completed and registered at Kobe. Her gross registered (GRT) tonnage and net registered tonnage (NRT) respectively are 318-tons and 183-tons. Her call sign is JHPJ. [1]

9 March 1938:
Departs Tsingtao.

15 October 1940:
Requisitioned by the IJN.

22 October 1940:
Departs Sasebo to support operations in the southern China area.

15 October 1941:
Registered as a specially installed transport (oil supply) in the Sasebo Naval District. Tactically assigned to the Chinese area fleet as an auxiliary transport, Otsu category. [2]

1 December 1941:
Attached to the Canton Force under Southern Chinese Force command No. 18.

8 December 1941:
The Japanese move troops across the frontier of Hong Kong's New Territories, attack Kowloon’s Kai Tak airport and bomb Hong Kong’s harbor.

25 December 1941: The Fall of Hong Kong:
Hong Kong's Governor Sir Mark A. Young surrenders the Crown Colony to LtGen Sakai Takashi, CG, 23rd Army. That night, nearly 6,500 British and Commonwealth troops go into Japanese captivity.

26 December 1941:
Attached to the Hong Kong Area Forces. MOJI MARU is assigned to perform refueling support in the Hong Kong Area.

1 January 1942:
Off Hong Kong. Naval operated tanker TOEN MARU, 5,332 GRT, is damaged by a mine. MOJI MARU is assigned to lighten the ship of its heavy fuel oil cargo; but high winds and strong currents frequently cause MOJI MARU to operate in areas not yet swept of British mines.

3 January 1942:
SW of Hong Kong. In heavy seas, MOJI MARU enters an unswept area, strikes a mine and sinks.

1 May 1942:
Removed from the Navy List.

Authors notes :

[1] NRT is a ship's cargo volume capacity expressed in "register tons", one of which equals to a volume of 100 cubic feet (2.83 m3). It is calculated by subtracting non-revenue-earning spaces i.e. spaces not available for carrying cargo, for example engine rooms, fuel tanks and crew quarters, from the ship's gross register tonnage (GRT). Net register tonnage (NRT) is not a measure of the weight of the ship or its cargo, and should not be confused with terms such as deadweight tonnage or displacement.

[2] There were two categories of Yusosen. (Ko) category with an IJN Captain as supervisor aboard and (Otsu) category without.

Thanks go to Gengoro S. Toda of Japan and Berend van der Wal of Netherlands.

- Bob Hackett and Peter Cundall.

Back to the Oilers Page