Did you know that the name Hōfuku Maru carries a tragic historical irony?

Translated from its Japanese kanji (豊福丸), Hōfuku roughly means "Abundance of Blessings" or "Repayment of Good Fortune". For a vessel that became an unmarked floating grave for over 1,000 Allied prisoners of war, the name stands as a haunting contradiction in maritime history.

In official Imperial Japanese Navy records, the freighter was frequently recorded under its alternate transliteration, Toyofuku Maru, which utilizes the exact same kanji characters. Due to wartime language barriers and chaotic hold conditions, trapped Allied POWs often misidentified her in postwar accounts as the Fuji Maru, Fiji Maru, or simply Fuku.

Another little-known tragedy occurred before her final voyage: after suffering engine failure in July 1944, the ship sat anchored in Manila Bay for two full months awaiting repairs.

During that agonizing delay, approximately 98 POWs perished from extreme heat, starvation, and disease inside the suffocating, unventilated holds before the ship even joined Convoy MATA-27.

Verified Sources:

• Hofuku Maru Project Compendium V4.0 (Section 2 & Section 4)

• HMF Identification Report La_Paz_Wreck.pdf (Part I, Section 1.3)