Shipwrecks of Subic Bay, Republic of the Philippines
Subic Bay, on the west coast of Luzon just northwest of Manila, is a large, deep-water feature protected on three sides by land. On the east side of the bay is Olongapo City, which has housed a large naval base since 1885. Ownership of this base has reflected the colonial history of the Philippines; from the Spanish, to Americans, Japanese, and finally the Filipinos. The U.S. Navy had a large forward-deployed presence here from 1945-1992, and have recently begun expanding operations here since 2023.
Although Subic is smaller than Manila Bay, this has been an important waterway for the Philippine Islands for hundreds of years. Unsurprisingly, there are many shipwrecks here, stretching back to the Spanish Colonial period. Four of these caught my attention, and I was able to locate them and add them to the Pacific History Guide Google Maps list. The history of these ships match not just the history of the Second World War in the Philippines but Pacific History more generally.
The first of these is USS New York (ACR-2); a ship with a unique history. New York he was the first American armored cruiser to be laid down, along with her sister ship the Maine, which was fated to blow up in Havana Harbor, triggering the Spanish-American War. In the course of her service, this ship had three names: USS New York (1891-1911), Rochester (1911-1917), and Saratoga (1917-1938). She reported for her last assignment, with the U.S. Pacific Fleet in Shanghai, in 1932. She was decommissioned in Manila Bay a year later, and was used as a service and storage platform in Olongapo until 1938, when she was formally stricken from the Naval Register. On Christmas Eve 1941, with the Imperial Japanese Army quickly overrunning Luzon, the ship was scuttled in Subic Bay to avoid her falling into the hands of the enemy.
The wreck of the Japanese freighter Seian Maru 星安丸 is also in Subic Bay. Launched in 1938 and requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Navy just two years later, the ship served in auxiliary role as a an anti-submarine platform (laying nets, dropping depth charges, etc), and later as a transport and oiler. The ship underwent three major modifications throughout her life. Seian Maru took part in the Japanese seizure of French Indochina as well as the Dutch East Indies, and although there is a gap in her TROM from October 1944, she must have played a part in supplying Japanese troops and ships during the battle for the Philippines. She was sighted and sunk by bombs on 17 November 1944, by elements of the U.S. Navy's Task Force 38. Please don't confuse this wreck with that of the Heian Maru 平安丸, which was sunk during Operation Hailstone at Truk in February 1944. The wreck of the Seian Maru lies on its side in 27 meters of water, near that of USS New York.
USS Lanikai, a two-masted wooden schooner, has a fascinating history. She was built in Oakland, California for an agency serving the German trading compnay Jaluit-Gesselchaft of Hamburg. Visitors to PHG may recognize the name Jaluit; it's an atoll in the Marshall Islands; at the time this ship was launched in 1914, Germany had been in control of most of Micronesia for some 15 years. Unfortunately, Lanikai was in port in Honolulu, Hawai'i when the First World War broke out, and the ship was seized by the Americans, who later recommissioned her in the U.S. Navy as USS Hermes in 1918. The ship served in various ways between the U.S. Navy, Hawaiian Territorial Government, and private corporations (she was named USS Lanikai as a nod to her owner, the Lanikai Fish Company), as well as MGM Studios as a film setting. Sold in 1939 and sent to the Philippines, the ship was tasked in early December 1941 with providing a defensive information patrol. The ship avoided being sunk in this mission as the Second World War broke out, and eventually made a run to Australia, where she was again recommissioned, this time in the Royal Australian Navy, and performed harbor defense in Freemantle. She was sent back to the Philippines in 1946, having survived two world wars, only to be sunk by a typhoon in Subic Bay in 1947.
Finally, perhaps the darkest of these, is the Oryoku Maru 鴨緑丸. Launched in 1938, she served as a passenger and cargo ship and was requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Army at some point in 1943. This ship is mostly known for its sinking; in December 1944, as the Allies were taking the Philippines, she was loaded with cargo, 3,500 Japanese evacuees, and some 1,600 Allied POW's, most of whom were survivors of the fall of Bataan and Corregidor in spring 1942. As her convoy was attempting to escape, she was attacked by elements of Task Force 38 and limped back to Olongapo. The damage she took included several large holes opening the cargo holds, where the POW's had been crammed. At Olongapo, the evacuees were disembarked but the POW's were kept aboard. The next day, the Allies hit the ship again, sinking it and killing 728, 286 of which were prisoners of war.
Oryoku Maru is one of the better known cases of a Japanese 'Hell Ship'; the name we came up with to describe a floating prison with little or no light, food, or water. In today's terminology we'd consider each of these cases a war crime; it's sad to say that these types of conditions were commonplace for people captured by the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, both combatants and civilians alike. As recently as February of this year, the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency (DPAA) was working to recover and identify remains from the wreck of the Oryaku Maru.
Opposite the site of the Oryaku Maru wreck on the Olongapo waterfront is the Hellships Memorial. ALthough I've not seen this in person myself, it does strike me from the photographs as being beautiful in its simplicity; dedicated to the men and women who died here and elsewhere on Japan's Hell Ships in the Second World War. There is some disagreement in the discipline reagarding just how many hell ships there were, which were destroyed, and how many POW's were killed as a result. Further reading can be found in the PHG reading and resources list. I recommend Gregory F. Michno, Death on the Hell Ships: Prisoners at Sea in the Pacific War (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2001) for a start.
If you've been to Subic Bay, Olongapo, or any of cities and towns of the Philippines, I'd love to hear from you, particularly if you've got first-hand knowledge of the shipwrecks, memorials, and monuments, including those in Subic Bay. I appreciate each and every one of my PHG readers, thanks so much for visiting.
Keep exploring,
Tony
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