Suez Maru carried 547 sick British and Dutch prisoners of war alongside wounded Japanese troops and moved slowly without zigzagging. USS Bonefish attacked without knowing the prisoners were aboard, and hundreds escaped the holds as the ship sank. The accompanying minesweeper recovered Japanese survivors, forced Allied prisoners away, and then troops used rifles and machine guns against those in the wreckage. The distinction between Bonefish's uninformed wartime attack and the deliberate killing that followed separates a combat loss from the atrocity committed against its survivors.
Chapter · 1:16:19-1:19:21
Suez Maru, USS Bonefish, and the killing of POW survivors
Bonefish unknowingly sinks a transport carrying Allied POWs, after which Japanese troops murder the prisoners who escaped into the water.