Victims Remembered on 74th Anniversary of Torpedo Attack in Japan

August 22, 2018

Naha, Okinawa Pref.- A memorial service was held Wednesday to mark the 74th anniversary of the tragedy of the Tsushima Maru evacuation ship, in which more than 1,400 Japanese people aboard, including many school children, were killed in a U.S. torpedo attack during World War II.

Some 400 attendees, including survivors and bereaved relatives, offered silent prayers for the victims in the memorial service held at a cenotaph in Naha, the capital of Japan's southernmost prefecture of Okinawa.

"My mission is to break the cycle of retaliation," Masakatsu Takara, a 78-year-old survivor and head of a group to remember the attack, said at the ceremony, expressing his resolve to ensure lasting peace.

On the night of Aug. 22, 1944, the 6,754-ton Tsushima Maru sank off Akuseki Island in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan, due to the torpedo attack by a U.S. submarine while it was heading toward Nagasaki Prefecture for evacuation after leaving Naha on the previous day.

Of the 1,788 people aboard, some 80 pct, including about 800 children, lost their lives in the attack. The names of the 1,484 victims are inscribed on the memorial board at Tsushima-maru Memorial Museum in Naha, including those of two people added this year. Jiji Press