New Research Opens Another Chapter in the Shin’yō Maru Project

Written By Randy Anderson

From Bataan to Sindangan Point

Martin Eisenman was born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1916. He served in the U.S. Army in Panama from 1935 to 1937, then reenlisted in 1940 and joined the Army Air Corps. He was posted to the Philippines as an aircraft mechanic with the 17th Pursuit Squadron, later part of the 24th Pursuit Group.

When war came in December 1941, American air power in the Philippines was quickly destroyed. Men from the pursuit squadrons were sent to fight as infantry, and the 17th helped defend southwestern Bataan during the Battle of the Points. Eisenman's journey from there followed a path shared by hundreds of the men who later died with him.

National Archives historian Lee Gladwin found that 650 of the 750 Shin’yō Maru prisoners had worked at Lasang, while another 100 worked at a second airfield south of Davao.

The Sinking

At 1651 on 7 September, the submarine USS Paddle (SS-263), under Lt. Cmdr. Byron H. Nowell, fired four torpedoes at the tanker leading the convoy. Nowell then fired two more at the ship behind it, Shin’yō Maru. Both struck at about 1653. Paddle had no idea that Allied prisoners were aboard.

The ship broke apart after the hits and a further explosion. Survivors said Japanese guards fired into the holds and threw grenades down on the men trapped below. Prisoners who reached the water were shot at from Japanese ships and aircraft.

Of about 750 POWs, 667 were killed. Eighty-three reached shore, and one of them later died of pneumonia. Filipino guerrillas sheltered and cared for the survivors until an American submarine evacuated them.

What the article adds to our search

Silverman's research opens five lines of inquiry for the Shin’yō Maru Project.

1. The road to Tabunco

Much of our work so far has focused on the area where the ship went down. Eisenman's story reminds us that the sinking was the last event in a journey of more than two years. We now plan to reconstruct the prisoners' movement from the Davao and Lasang area through Tabunco to Zamboanga. A dated map of that route would serve both our historical report and the planned documentary.

2. USS Paddle's patrol report

Silverman builds his account of the attack from USS Paddle's Fifth War Patrol Report. He also reproduces the report's attack diagram, which labels the tanker Eiyo Maru No. 2 as a "medium AO" (oiler) and Shin’yō Maru as a "medium AK" (cargo ship).

This report is one of the most important sources for estimating where the wreck lies. The positions, headings, speeds and times it records do not fit together perfectly. Rather than adjusting those figures until they agree, we work from the original values and treat the gaps as part of the evidence. The article does not resolve those gaps, but it supports that approach.

3. What did Allied intelligence know?

The most intriguing lead in the article concerns codebreaking. Citing Lee Gladwin, Silverman reports that the U.S. Navy's Fleet Radio Unit Pacific (FRUPAC) intercepted a Japanese message about the convoy. The American decrypt showed Shin’yō Maru carrying "750 [blank]." A British version, from the Radio Unit Eastern Fleet, reportedly filled in the gap as 750 POWs, but it reached the Americans too late.

Silverman also presents historian Gregory Michno's counterpoint. Even if submarine commanders had known that POWs were somewhere in the convoy, a submerged submarine could not easily tell which ship carried them.

We will not call this an intelligence failure without more evidence. Instead, we are opening a dedicated research file around three questions: what did FRUPAC and other Allied units know about the convoy, when did they know it, and could that information have reached Paddle in time? Gladwin's National Archives research is our starting point.

4. Survivor Lyle G. Knudson

Sgt. Lyle G. Knudson of the 27th Bombardment Group survived the sinking and apparently knew Eisenman at the Davao Penal Colony. After his rescue, while stationed at New Castle Army Air Base in Delaware, Knudson visited the Eisenman family to tell them he remembered Martin.

We want to find everything Knudson left behind: debriefing and interrogation reports, affidavits, letters, newspaper interviews, photographs, VA records and oral histories. Statements made soon after his rescue may hold details later summaries dropped, such as where prisoners came ashore, how Filipinos helped them, and how they were moved inland and evacuated.

5. Records to obtain firsthand

Silverman's bibliography is one of the article's strongest features. It points to records HMF should obtain and read for ourselves:

  • the 17th Pursuit Squadron POW roster and Davao Penal Colony records in Record Group 407 at the National Archives

  • USS Paddle's Fifth War Patrol Report

  • Eisenman's military service summary

  • contemporary newspaper accounts

  • the Shin’yō Maru POW roster

  • Lee Gladwin's National Archives research

  • survivor material relating to Lyle Knudson

A separate Davao POW roster already confirms the article's details. It lists "EISENMAN MARTIN, SGT, 6855191, Air Corps, 24th Pursuit Group, 17th Pursuit Squadron" with Shinyo and the date 7 September 1944. This kind of cross-checking will be built into our casualty database.

Why we search

The most important thing in Silverman's article is not technical. He spoke with Eisenman's family, including his brother Norman. When Martin's Purple Heart arrived, their mother kept it inside the family's grandfather clock. Norman remembered her grieving for her son year after year.

Martin Eisenman's remains were never recovered. His name is on the Tablets of the Missing at the Manila American Cemetery.

The wreck off Sindangan Point is the final resting place of Eisenman and hundreds of the men who died with him. Finding it is how we honor them, and that purpose guides every part of this project.

What comes next

Our next step is to build detailed source files on Martin Eisenman and Lyle Knudson. From those two men, we will work outward to all 750 prisoners who boarded Shin’yō Maru.

The goal is a Shin’yō Maru POW Journey Database. Where records allow, it will follow each man from his unit and capture through Cabanatuan, Davao and his labor site, then to Tabunco, Zamboanga and his place in the ship's holds. For survivors, it will go on to record where they came ashore, the guerrillas who helped them, and their evacuation.

The database will bring together our historical research, casualty records, documentary work, Filipino oral-history project and maritime search. Martin Eisenman will be its first fully documented entry.

Join the search

We welcome researchers, historians, archivists, maritime archaeologists, technical specialists, veterans, descendants and anyone who cares about this history. You can take part in the research, share documents or expertise, or support the project with a donation to the Hellships Memorial Foundation.

Deep-water investigation depends on specialized equipment, archival work, technical expertise and field operations. Every document found and every survivor account examined brings us closer to understanding what happened on 7 September 1944, and to finding Shin’yō Maru.

They are not forgotten. The search continues.

https://www.hellshipsmemorial.org/support-the-memorial

Sources

Randy Anderson
Next

Voyages of Infamy: Survivor Voices from the Japanese Hellships