Romusha and the Hellships
The story of the Hellships is not only the story of Allied prisoners of war. It is also the story of the romusha—Asian civilian laborers who were recruited, coerced, or forced into Japanese wartime labor service and transported in huge numbers across Southeast Asia. In some of the worst Hellship disasters, romusha made up a large share, and sometimes the majority, of those aboard. Public historical sources note that the number of POWs and romusha transported by ship may have been 50,000 to 60,000, and that many died in sinkings, disease, starvation, and forced labor. To understand the Hellships fully, their story must be placed at the center of the history, not at its margins.
Who Were the Romusha?
The term romusha generally refers to Asian laborers compelled into service by the Japanese war effort. Many were from Java, but romusha were drawn from across occupied Asia. The Australian War Memorial describes them plainly as Asian labourers used in large numbers on projects such as the Burma–Thailand Railway, where around 200,000 romusha worked alongside about 60,000 Allied POWs. Their labor was used for railways, roads, airfields, military construction, and other projects essential to Japanese logistics.
Why Romusha Were Carried on the Hellships
The Hellships were part of Japan’s wider labor transport system. They did not carry only military prisoners. They also moved civilian laborers from one occupied territory to another wherever work was needed most. Romusha were often transported under conditions just as brutal as those endured by Allied POWs: overcrowding, poor sanitation, almost no medical care, inadequate food and water, and the constant danger of attack at sea. The POW Research Network’s ship database repeatedly shows romusha moving alongside POWs on major transport voyages, demonstrating that the Hellships were part of a larger system of wartime forced movement and exploitation.
The Scale of Their Suffering
In many Hellship sinkings, the romusha dead far outnumbered the Allied POW dead. The best-known example is Jun’yō Maru, sunk off Sumatra on 18 September 1944. Commonwealth War Graves Commission and POW Research Network materials state that there were about 4,200 romusha aboard in addition to Allied POWs, and that the sinking caused over 5,500 deaths in total. CWGC’s account notes that only about 200 romusha are thought to have survived. This makes Jun’yō Maru one of the clearest examples of how Asian laborers bore the heaviest share of loss in some of the worst Hellship disasters.
Other Major Romusha Hellships
Jun’yō Maru was not unique. Public sources indicate that Kōshū Maru carried large numbers of Javanese romusha, and POW Research Network states that about 1,239 prisoners and laborers died when the ship was sunk in August 1944. Likewise, Tango Maru carried approximately 3,500 romusha and others from Surabaya toward Ambon, and POW Research Network records that more than 3,000 Javanese romusha and POWs were killed when it was sunk in February 1944. These examples show that the Hellships were not simply POW ships in the narrow Allied sense; they were also mass labor transports whose dead included thousands of Asian civilians.
Transport to Forced Labor
For those romusha who survived the voyage, the destination was often another stage of severe exploitation. The Australian War Memorial explains that romusha were used in enormous numbers on the Burma–Thailand Railway and suffered catastrophic mortality there. Similar patterns existed elsewhere: transport by sea led to forced labor in railways, airfields, ports, and construction sites across the Japanese empire. In that sense, the Hellships were not only places of suffering in themselves. They were also a bridge into wider systems of wartime slave labor.
Why Romusha Are Often Missing from the Story
One reason romusha have often been underrepresented in public memory is that the records are less complete than for Allied military prisoners. Many were civilians without the kind of service numbers, regimental records, or official casualty systems that existed for British, American, Australian, or Dutch servicemen. They were also drawn from colonized societies whose wartime suffering did not always receive the same postwar documentation or memorial attention. As a result, Hellship history has often been told through Allied POW memory first, even when romusha formed the largest group aboard. The ship-loss summaries in the POW Research Network are important partly because they keep that broader human cargo visible.
Why Romusha Matter to the Hellships Memorial
Remembering the romusha changes the scale and meaning of the Hellships story. It reminds us that these ships were not only a chapter in Allied military captivity, but also part of a much larger system of coerced labor across Asia. It widens the memorial field from national military remembrance to a broader human history of exploitation, transport, and death. Any serious interpretation of the Hellships should therefore make clear that the victims included not only named Allied POWs, but also thousands of Asian laborers whose names were often never fully recorded.
Sources
POW Research Network Japan, Sunken Japanese Ships with Allied POWs in transit.
POW Research Network Japan, Junyo Maru.
POW Research Network Japan, Koshu Maru.
POW Research Network Japan, Tango Maru.
Commonwealth War Graves Commission, Corporal Jack Warwick story.
Australian War Memorial, The Burma–Thailand Railway.
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