For eight decades, the final resting place of more than a thousand Allied prisoners of war remained unknown. Now, a team of explorers has located the wreck of the Hofuku Maru, a Japanese freighter that sank off the coast of Luzon in the Philippines in September 1944, carrying 1,289 British and Dutch soldiers. The discovery, made possible by a digitised Japanese military file, brings closure to families who had no grave to visit.
A forgotten atrocity
The Hofuku Maru was part of a convoy transporting prisoners from forced labour camps across Southeast Asia. Many of those on board had already endured the brutal conditions of the Burma–Thailand “Death Railway”. Packed into the ship’s holds with no light, ventilation, or sanitation, and with minimal food and water, the prisoners were effectively cargo. The vessel carried no markings to indicate its human cargo.
On 21 September 1944, aircraft from the US Navy’s Task Force 38 attacked the convoy. A torpedo struck the Hofuku Maru, which broke in two and sank in less than three minutes. Up to 1,000 men were trapped below deck. Those who escaped and swam to shore were recaptured by Japanese forces. In total, 1,047 of the 1,289 prisoners died.
These vessels were known as “hell ships”, and of the more than 125,000 Allied prisoners transported on them, around 20,000 perished. Despite the scale of the tragedy, the story remains one of the least known episodes of the Second World War.
The document that broke the mystery
For years, historians relied on fragmentary post-war records and contradictory survivor testimonies. The breakthrough came in 2025, when researcher John Duresky of the Hellships Memorial Foundation examined a digitised Japanese document written by officers on the convoy’s flagship. It provided a timeline, a map of the attack, and specified that the Hofuku Maru was the second ship in the formation when it was hit.
Cross-referencing this with the action report of the USS Bunker Hill, the team realised the wreck lay more than 50 kilometres south of where historians had previously searched. “We were absolutely stunned to discover that Japanese sources held information on where they attacked the convoy and which ships were hit,” said Randy Anderson, the foundation’s founder. “It was the smoking gun.”
Armed with the new coordinates, a team including television explorer Josh Gates, underwater imaging specialist Evan Kovacs, and maritime archaeologist Calvin Mires deployed sonar equipment off Zambales province. The wreck was found at a depth of around 50 metres, a few kilometres from the coast.
War grave protected
Five deep technical dives were conducted. Volcanic ash from the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo covered parts of the site, but the team took hundreds of photographs and assembled a three-dimensional photogrammetric model. The dimensions of the hull, the position of the masts, and the layout of the holds matched original shipyard plans. The wreck was found broken in two, consistent with both American and Japanese accounts.
Human remains were observed among the debris, making the site a war grave protected under international conventions. The exact coordinates have not been released to prevent disturbance. The Netherlands has announced it will work with other countries to honour the victims, while the Hellships Memorial Foundation will begin contacting families.
Five hell ship wrecks remain unaccounted for. The discovery of the Hofuku Maru does not close the chapter, but it means that the prisoners’ families now know where their forebears lie, and that they can rest in peace 80 years after the sinking.
