Japanese raiders in the Indian Ocean
These vessels were subsequently used as merchant raiders attacking Allied commercial shipping along vital sea lanes of communication between Australia and the Middle East.
Nations fighting Britain during both world wars in the 20th century devoted substantial effort to the disruption of oceanic trade as a means of weakening the British Empire.
German merchant raiders, originally disrupting the shipping lanes in these waters, had with few exceptions, been destroyed by the Royal Navy or begun the long journey home.
Nonetheless, other than their successful sortie to Ceylon in April 1942, the Japanese Navy had decided to keep the pressure on the shipping lanes, primarily due to the Allies' ever-growing logistical strength in the war.
Large and valuable tankers maintained a continuous stream of oil and other products from the Middle East to Australia and surrounding islands.
The continuous pleas by the Germans possibly[1] had a large influence on this decision, as the Indian Ocean was the primary area of operations in which the two Axis powers had the most physical coordination with each other, in regards to re-supply and the exchange of military (naval) intelligence.
[citation needed] In 1940, two passenger-cargo vessels of the Osaka Shipping Line were requisitioned for conversion to armed merchant cruisers (AMC)s, in anticipation of the likely thrust southward by the Japanese.
Hōkoku Maru was modified to serve as Admiral Takeda's flagship with space for his staff of four officers and eighteen men.
[2] The 24th Special Cruiser Squadron departed Hiroshima Bay on 15 November 1941 under radio silence and blacked out at night to arrive in a standby position at Jaluit Atoll in the Marshall Islands.
They departed Jaluit on 26 November 1941 to patrol the sea lanes between Australia, Samoa, Fiji, the United States, and the Panama Canal.
[2] Following sunset on 12 December 1941, Hōkoku Maru stopped the 6,210-ton United States freighter Vincent bound for the Panama Canal from Sydney, Australia at 23 south, 118 west.
On 31 December, a seaplane from Aikoku Maru found and circled the 3,275-ton United States freighter Malama bound for New Zealand from Honolulu with a cargo of US Army Air Force trucks and aircraft engines.
One of the seaplanes found Malama at 0910, circled at low altitude and ordered the ship to stop with a burst of machine gun fire.
Admiral Takeda was 130 miles (210 km) away, but intercepted the distress calls and ordered the plane to return to be rearmed with bombs.
More modern seaplanes were embarked when the squadron deployed to the Indian Ocean with the additional duty of resupplying the Japanese submarines operating in the Mozambique Channel.
[1] On 11 November 1942 at 11:45 in the morning, naval authorities in Fremantle received an SOS signal sent out by the Bengal, reporting that she and the Ondina were under attack by two raiders, identified as being Japanese, at position 19.38° South 93.5° East.
The battle started when a lookout aboard Ondina sighted an unknown vessel at about 12,000 metres (13,000 yd), bearing 270 degrees, followed by a ship of similar size.
The sensible thing to do for the Ondina was to obey the order to escape, but the captain decided to stay, as his ship, armed with a 4-inch gun, was still the more powerful of the two.
There were no reports of damage or casualties aboard the Aikoku Maru, which soon avenged her sister ship, scoring several hits on Ondina.
Nevertheless, her shells and torpedoes had little effect on the empty tanker, as the large number of watertight tanks could keep it afloat under the most difficult circumstances.
After leaving the scene, Bengal set course for Diego Garcia, where the captain reported the Ondina and one enemy AMC sunk.
A last attempt to escape by dumping smokebuoys overboard was unsuccessful, and the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship to avoid further bloodshed.
Most of the crew (with the exception of officers and guncrew) were Chinese, and they had been troublesome during the whole action, refusing to provide any assistance to save the ship.
Not without trouble, Rehwinkel managed to assemble a small number of men and returned to the ship, where counterflooding reduced the list.
This unexpected signal caused a shock in Colombo, as the Ondina had been reported sunk and logically, the British suspected a Japanese trick.
The unknown vessel proved to be a hospital ship where doctors immediately began a series of blood transfusions which succeeded in saving Henry's life.
Captain W. Horsman became Ridder in de Militaire Willemsorde der 4de Klasse posthumously and was Mentioned in Dispatches, while the gunner, Hammond, received the Distinguished Service Medal and the Bronzen Kruis.
[1] Aikoku Maru was converted into a high-speed transport and was sunk in February 1944 during Operation Hailstone, the bombardment by American aircraft of the Japanese base at Truk in the South Seas Mandate.
