| TSUSHIMA MARU (August 24, 1944)
Passenger/cargo ship of 6,754 tons, sunk by the US submarine USS Bowfin just north-west of the island of Akuseki. The Tsushima, unmarked and unlighted, was evacuating some 1,788 persons including children, school teachers and some parents, from Okinawa to the mainland of Japan prior to the American landings on the Ryukyu Islands. The attack on Convoy Namo 103, which included the Tsushima, was carried out at night between 10 and 11.30 pm. The ship sank in less than fifteen minutes and took the lives of 1,529 souls. Some survivors managed to cling to rafts for three days before being picked up. Of the 826 children on board, 741 drowned. There were only 59 child survivors.
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On weald of Kent I watched once more
Again I heard that grumbling roar
Of fighter planes; yet none were near
And all around the sky was clear
Borne on the wind a whisper came
'Though men grow old, they stay the same'
And then I knew, unseen to eye
The ageless Few were sweeping by
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