Investigating Tragedy at Sea – The Ukishima-maru Incident and its Legacy

Abstract

On August 22, 1945 the Ukushima-maru set sail from the northern Japanese port city of Ōminato with the apparent intention of delivering an undisclosed number of Koreans to Pusan, Korea. The laborers had been both recruited and conscripted for construction work necessary to fortify the naval base that had been strategically located in this remote location decades from the time of the 1905 Russo-Japanese War to monitor ship traffic between the islands of Honshu and Hokkaido. Two days later, while skirting the Japan Sea/East Sea side of Honshu island, the ship suddenly detoured into Maizuru Harbor in Kyoto prefecture, where it exploded sending hundreds, perhaps thousands of Koreans, and 25 Japanese to their watery grave. While other ships met similar fates after the guns of the AsiaPacific wars fell silent, the Ukishima-maru incident is unique in the cause of the explosion that sank the ship remains a mystery. While the Japanese government insists that a sea mine sank the ship, Korean groups continue to maintain that it was the Japanese navy that intentionally caused the explosion to sink it. This paper aims to first identify the points of contention by following the ship from its Ōminato departure to its Maizuru sinking. It then considers the ramifications for the incident remaining unresolved. In what ways might Japan adopt more positive means toward assisting investigations that seek resolution and closure? Is non-resolution truly in its interests, or might its failure to resolve this incident (and other outstanding colonial-era issues) return to haunt the Japanese government? Does non-resolution strengthen the colonial narrative that Koreans have scripted that frames Japanese colonial-era ambitions as seeking a long-term goal of cultural genocide?