On her final voyage, Lisbon Maru was being used to transport prisoners of war between Hong Kong and Japan when it was torpedoed by the submarine USS Grouper on 1 October 1942.

Twin propellers were powered by a pair of triple expansion steam engines with a combined rating of 632 nhp, giving a service speed of 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph).

[4][5] On her final voyage, the Lisbon Maru was carrying 700 Japanese Army personnel and 1,816 British prisoners of war captured after the Battle of Hong Kong in December 1941.

[8] As more fishing boats approached the wreck site, Japanese ships, which had been shooting at the British POWs in the water, began to pick up survivors.

[citation needed] A reunion of Lisbon Maru survivors was held on board HMS Belfast on 2 October 2007 to mark the 65th anniversary of their escape.

[13] The album War, Peace and Diplomacy by Tom Hickox features a track named "The Lisbon Maru",[14] in which a survivor of the sinking relays his tale to a barman.

[15] The documentary film The Sinking Of The Lisbon Maru, produced and directed by Fang Li, was released in September 2024 in mainland China, covering the stories of the families affected by the tragedy and shedding light on the rescue of British POWs by Chinese fishermen.