On July 9 1944, a Japanese transport ship sank in the waters off the Kurile chain after being hit by torpedoes of the allied forces.
The ship was the Taiheimaru of the Japanese Taiyo Joint-stock Shipping Company, which the Japanese imperialists had mobilized to transport manpower and materials needed for the construction of military bases.
It was common for the belligerent countries to sink their rivals' transport ships during the Second World War.
But the sinking of the Taiheimaru should not go unnoticed because innocent young and middle-aged Koreans were buried at sea in the incident.
At that time, the Japanese imperialists, who had a premonition of their defeat, regarded the islands in the northern part of the Kurile chain as a strategic point for defending the Japanese mainland and were tenaciously building military bases like airports there.
One day in July 1944, the Japanese imperialists forced the Koreans who had worked for the construction of military bases in Otaru, Hokkaido, into the ship on the pretext of moving them to other construction sites on the Kurile chain.
Thus the ship was carrying more than 1 000 forcibly drafted Koreans along with Japanese imperialist aggressor troops and large quantities of various kinds of munitions and building materials.
Though they anticipated that the ship could be attacked by the allied forces during the voyage, the Japanese imperialists did not give the Koreans life jackets for use in emergency. On the contrary, they locked them in small rooms and made them go in and out only through holes in their ceilings.
While sailing in that condition, the Taiheimaru was hit by two torpedoes launched by a US army submarine in the waters off the Kurile chain on the morning of July 9.
After two great explosions, sea water mercilessly rushed into the ship’s hold. The temperature of the sea water around the Kurile chain was 4°C and the water was very cold even in summer.
That day over 650 of the Koreans on board the ship died.
Hwang Jong Su, one of the forcibly drafted Koreans, recalled, “Determined to be alive to return home at any cost, I managed to find a hole and get on the deck of the ship. Then I saw a gruesome scene of people having died on the spot or bleeding.”
Decades have passed since then, but their souls cannot rest in peace still harbouring grudge.
Japan, however, has not yet honestly reflected on and apologized for its past crimes but is hell-bent on the moves for reinvasion of the DPRK.
History will never forget Japan’s past crimes.
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