This record comprises a documentary reference to a shipping casualty which has been assigned to the maritime named location BRISTOL CHANNEL pending more information which may allow a more precise location for the loss to be assigned.

Event and Historical Information:
The HIRANO MARU was a steel hulled cargo vessel built in 1908 by Mitsu Bishi Dockyard & Eng Works, Nagasaki and registered in Tokyo, Japan. Technical and configuration specifications are given as 473ft 9in length x 54ft 7in breadth x 31ft 3in depth; 8520gt 5283nt; 2 decks, 7 bulkheads, passanger deck 61ft, boat deck 176ft, forecastle 64ft; twin screw propulsion powered by 6 boilers linked to 6cylinder triple expansion engine producing 973horsepower. Japan at the time, was a staunch ally of Britain and the Imperial Japanese Navy defended the Indian and Pacific Oceans, which also explains why Japanese merchant ships were helping the British war effort. HIRANO MARU had left Liverpool on the evening tide of 1 October 1918, bound for Yokohama via Durban. The following morning, she joined the south bound convoy OE-23. The ship was carrying a mixed cargo with 320 crew and passengers and a Scottish Captain, Hector Frazer, who had worked for the NYK line for twenty-five years and had been awarded the medal of the Rising Sun for his contribution to the Japanese people during the Sino- Japanese and Russo -Japanese wars. The HIRANO MARU and the rest of convoy OE23 was escorted by several warships, one of which was an American destroyer the USS STERRETT. UB 91 sighted the convoy at 05.05hrs and two torpedos were fired, both hitting the Hirano Maru which sank in seven minutes, going down so quickly that her few undamaged lifeboats could not be launched. At 07.05 the USS STERRETT hove to, picking up survivors, but during the rescue operation, torpedo tracks were spotted and STERRET immediately got under way to attack UB 91 and closed at high speed dropping depth charges. However, UB91 escaped damaged by diving deep. When STERRET returned to the rescue 50 minutes, most of those in the water had succumbed to hypothermia. At 0758, the STERRET reluctantly called off the search for survivors. Of the 320 souls on board, only 29 survived. Among the passengers that perished was the London Branch Manager of the Yokohama Specie Bank, S Ujie, his wife and three sons as well as a bank employee Takashi Aoki and his wife Sueko. There is a grave for 10 Japanese crew members in the churchyard of St Mary's, Angle. There is a grave in Milford Haven cemetery which marks the last resting place of Signalman Alec John Lee z/7269 RNVR aged 19 years, SS HIRANO MARU.

Sources include:

David James, West Wales Maritime Heritage Society, pers com re U-Boat Project Wales 1914-18
Y Dydd, 18 October 1918, p.3
Haverfordwest and Milford Haven Telegraph, 16 October 1918, p.3
Hirano Maru, uboat.net
Hirano Maru, Wreck Site EU
Von Munching, L L, 1968, Allied, Neutral and Central Merchant Shipping Losses, p.43
Larn and Larn Shipwreck Database 2002
Lloyd's Register Casualty Returns, 1 October - 31 December 1918, p.9 (i)
Lloyd's Register of British and Foreign Shipping, 1 July 1915 - 30 June 1916, number 862 in H
UB 91, uboat.net
U-Boat Project: Commemorating the War at Sea

Maritime Officer, RCAHMW, 28 September 2018.

This record was enhanced in 2020 with funding from Lloyd's Register Foundation as part of the project ‘Making the Link: Lloyd's Register and the National Monuments Record of Wales’. Visit Lloyd’s Register Foundation Heritage and Education Centre for more resources.