Historians and citizens alike are shocked by recent evidence that the Ukishima Maru, the Japanese vessel that was to carry thousands of Korean forced laborers home near the end of the Second World War, had bombs inside it when it exploded and sank.
At the time, the Japanese Navy reported that the ship exploded because it disturbed a mine under the sea placed there by U.S. forces during the war. There was no mention of bombs existing inside the vessel until now.
A Korean memorial association on the Ukishima explosion announced on Monday that it retrieved internal documents by the Japanese government that prove the Ukishima Maru had bombs on board and other explosives at the time of its mysterious explosion on Aug. 24, 1945.
“Until now,” said Kim Moon-gil, an advisor of the memorial association, “there has been no evidence pointing to the fact that the Ukishima Maru was carrying explosives at the time of the incident.”
Kim received the documents from a Japanese citizen, who reportedly acquired them from the Japanese Ministry of Defense. The documents in question are presumed to have been written by a navy official to the captain of the Ukishima Maru on Aug. 22, 1945. It directs the captain to throw all explosives aboard the vessel into the sea if the ship had already set sail, or to place them somewhere on land if it has not yet done so.
Experts say this proves the existence of bombs inside the vessel. The vessel is presumed to have set sail that day without having discarded the explosives on land. In two days, it reached the waters near Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture, and exploded.
The Japanese government recorded that 3,725 Koreans were on board, of whom 524 died, while 25 out of the 255 Japanese navy officials aboard the ship died.
But Korean academics estimate the number of Korean casualties to stretch up to 5,000, citing studies that say more than 9,000 Koreans were engaged in forced labor in Japan at the time. Survivors of the explosion have also said there were some 7,500 to 8,000 Koreans on board the ship.
The association holds a ceremony to remember the deceased every year in Busan on Aug. 24.
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Source: Korea Joongang Daily
