SS Tjisalak

The SS "Tjisalak" was a 5,787-ton Dutch freighter with passenger accommodation built in 1917 for the Jave-China-Japan Lijn and used by the allies during the Second World War to transport supplies across the Indian Ocean, maintaining communications between Australia and Ceylon. On 26 March 1944, she was sunk by the Japanese submarine I-8 whilst traveling unescorted. The freighter's crew were subsequently massacred by the submarine's crew, in an infamous naval war crime.

The Sinking

The "Tjisalak" was sailing between Melbourne and Colombo with a cargo of flour and naval mail with a crew of 80 Dutch, Chinese and English sailors, including ten Royal Navy gunners manning the ship's small four-inch gun, five passengers (including an American Red Cross nurse, Mrs. Verna Gorden-Britten), and 22 Laskar sailors who were returning to India after the loss of their ship. The ship had been travelling for 19 days, when her captain was confused by an unusual wireless message from Perth, and changed his course, moving at 10 knots to conserve fuel. It was at this position, at 5.45 am, that she was hit by a torpedo from the "I-8".

One passenger, Lt Dawson from Australia, was killed instantly, and the ship began to list to port, and the order to abandon ship was given. Most of the crew observed the order, taking to the ship's boats and liferafts, but the British gunners and the Dutch gun commander, second officer Jan Dekker, stayed on board, and thus were ready when the Japanese submarine appeared to open fire. The submarine responded to the shell and machine gun fire with its own fire, forcing the remaining sailors to abandon ship.

The Massacre

Once in the water, the 105 survivors were collected from their boats and rafts by the Japanese, who set them on the ship's deck and ordered Captain Hen, the senior Dutch officer into the conning tower to confer with the Japanese captain, Tatsunoke Ariizumi. What the conversation between the Dutch and the Japanese captains consisted of is unknown, but survivors reported him shouting "No, no, I don't know." At that moment, a Chinese sailor slipped into the water and was shot by a Japanese submariner.

The Japanese tied the survivors together in pairs and walked pairs of prisoners aft around the conning tower where they were attacked by Japanese personnel armed with various weapons. Four men jumped or fell off the submarine while being attacked and then survived the random gunfire from three Japanese sailors seated on chairs behind the conning tower: Chief Officer Frits de Jong (albeit with a severe head injury), Second Officer Jan Dekker, Second Wireless Operator James Blears and Third Engineer Cees Spuybroek.

One of the Laskar passengers, Dhange, also escaped the massacre. After the Japanese had killed all but about about twenty of the crew with katanas, monkey wrenches, iron bars and other improvised weapons, they tied the remaining prisoners to a long rope, pushed them overboard, and then submerged. Dhange, the last man on the tow rope, was able to free himself before he drowned [Edwards, Bernard, "Blood and Bushido: Japanese Atrocities at Sea 1941-1945", The Self-Publishing Association, Ltd., Upton-upon-Severn, Worcs [England] , 1991]

The Survivors

The five survivors swam several miles through the open ocean back to the location of the sinking, and found refuge in an abandoned liferaft. Three days later they spotted a distant shape, which steadily came towards them until it was identitified as a liberty ship. This ship, the SS "James O. Wilder", after briefly firing on them, collected the sailors and carried them to Colombo.

In Colombo they endured an ordeal at the hands of the British authorities, because as merchant seamen they were ineligible for treatment at either the military hospitals or the civilian ones, and eventually had to arrange accommodation with local civilians at their own expense.

The Aftermath

The crew of the "I-8" went on to commit similar atrocities upon the liberty ship SS Jean Nicolet, and perhaps other ships from which there were no survivors. Although Ariizumi apparently committed suicide after the Japanese surrender in August 1945, at least three members of the crew were located and prosecuted for their participation in killing survivors or the "Tjisalak" and the "SS Jean Nicolet". Two were convicted and served token prison terms that were commuted by the Japanese government in 1955; the third was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against his shipmates.

References

Bridgland, Tony, "Waves of Hate", Pen & Sword, 2002, ISBN 0-85052-822-4

Edwards, Bernard, "Blood and Bushido: Japanese Atrocities at Sea 1941-1945", The Self Publishing Association, Ltd., Upton-upon-Severn [ENGLAND] , 1991, IBSN 1 85421 134 X

Frits de Jong and Henk Slettenaar, "De Chinalijn in Oorlogstijd", 2003, ISBN 90-808367-1-0