Post-war Civilian Service
Shinano Maru returned to civilian service in 1906, on Nippon Yusen's routes to Seattle, Washington. After more modern vessels were available, Shinano Maru was transferred to regional services, especially the Kobe - Keelung route. In 1913, Kuomingtang leader Sun Yat-sen sought refuge in Japan, and travelled to Kobe on Shinano Maru. In 1923, the ship was transferred to Kinkai Yusen, a subsidiary company of Nippon Yusen. In 1929, the ship was sold to Hokushin Kisen, and sold again in 1930 to the fisheries company Nichiro, which converted it into a floating factory ship supporting the fishing fleets in the North Pacific processing salmon off the coast of Kamchatka Peninsula.
Pressed back into service as a transport in the Pacific War, Shinano Maru was torpedoed January 18 1944 with moderate damage, then slightly damaged by a naval mine on June 1 1945, and again by an airstrike on July 14, 1945, which killed two crewmen. She was docked at Nagasaki during the final days of the war.
Shinano Maru was so obsolete and rusted that noted mangaka Shigeru Mizuki wrote in his diary that the iron of the hull was so rusted and thin that he considered it miraculous that the ship remained afloat, and that even the wake of a torpedo would be enough to sink it. After the surrender of Japan, it was used as a repatriation vessel bringing back Japanese former prisoners-of-war from Siberia. One of those returning to Japan on Shinano Maru was the future novelist Shōhei Ōoka. Shinano Maru was sold for scrap in 1951.
Read more about this topic: Shinano Maru (1904)
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