RIKUGUN HAITOSEN
(TAKACHIHO MARU, prewar)
IJA Transport TAKACHIHO MARU:
Tabular Record of Movement
© 2011-2021 Bob Hackett
Revision 3
20 November 1932:
Nagasaki. Laid down at Mitsubishi Zosensho as a 8,154-ton
passenger-cargo ship for the Osaka Shosen Kaisha (OSK) Line. She is designed
to carry 35 first class, 132 second class and 618 third class passengers.
5 October 1933:
Launched and named TAKACHIHO MARU.
31 January 1934:
Completed and placed on OSK Line's Kobe-Moji-Keelung/Formosa
(now Taiwan) route.
7 July 1937: The Marco Polo Bridge (The First "China")
Incident:
Lugouqiao, China. Japanese troops on night maneuvers at the bridge
fire blank cartridges. Chinese troops fire back, but do not cause injuries. The
Japanese discover a soldier missing and demand entry to Beijing to look for him,
but the Chinese refuse. The Japanese shell the city and an undeclared war on
China begins.
August 1937-January 1938:
TAKACHIHO MARU is requisitioned by the
Imperial Army (IJA) as a Rikugun troop transport (A/C-APK) for six months to
transports troops to China. Assigned IJA No. 290.
1938:
The Imperial Japanese Government adopts the Kunrei-shiki
romanization system for naval vessel names. TAKATIHO is the new spelling for
the Hepburn TAKACHIHO.[1]
March 1938:
Released to back to OSK.
September 1941:
Re-requisitioned by the IJA as an Army/civilian
passenger-cargo vessel Rikugun Senpaku Uneikai Haitosen (A/C-APK).
September-November 1941:
TAKATIHO MARU repatriates Japanese citizens
from Java, Netherlands East Indies.
December 1941:
Released by the IJA back to OSK and again placed on
their Kobe-Moji-Keelung route.
14 March 1943:
Captain Shimaoki's TAKATIHO MARU departs Kobe for Moji
and arrives later that day.
17 March 1943:
Departs Moji for Manila, Philippines via Keelung,
carrying 913 troops and passengers, 176 sailors and 2,614-tons of general cargo.
19 March 1943:
Off N Keelung, Formosa. At 0805 (H), alerted by a
codebreaker's "Ultra" signal, LtCdr (later Vice Admiral) Vernon L. Lowrance's
(USNA '30) USS KINGFISH (SS-234) sights a zig-zagging unescorted transport
making 15 knots.
At 0837, KINGFISH fires a spread of four torpedoes at 1,800 yards range.
TAKATIHO MARU evades one of them with an emergency turn to port, but then
receives three hits (one of them a dud) to the starboard, one aft of the bridge
and the other in the stern. The concussion disables the radio, so that no
distress signal can be transmitted. TAKATIHO MARU takes on a list to starboard
and goes down by the stern. Nevertheless, her gunners fire one salvo at
KINGFISH.
KINGFISH's crew observes about 200 survivors in the water, two (actually
three) lifeboats and four rafts. At 0846, TAKATIHO MARU sinks at 25-50N, 122-30E.
844 troops, passengers and crew are KIA.
Author's Note:
[1] Several sources erroneously list TAKATIHO MARU as an IJA
hospital ship, but Japanese Monograph No. 116 confirms her as a cargo vessel.
Thanks go to Gilbert Casse of France, Erich Muehlthaler of Germany and
Gengoro S. Toda of Japan.
-Bob Hackett
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