Suez Maru was a Japanese passenger and cargo steamship that was built in 1919, used as a hell ship, and sunk in 1943.

[2] In 1934 Kuribayashi Shosen KK acquired her, and at the same time the wireless telegraph call sign JSCD superseded her code letters.

Suez Maru sailed on 25 November 1943 with 547 POWs (414 British and 133 Dutch) from Ambon bound for Surabaya.

Koshio/Iketani told him that Major General Sanso Anami had ordered that if the ship were torpedoed, the PoWs should be shot.

Captain Kawano quickly agreed, ordering gunnery officer Yatsuka to arrange 20 soldiers with rifles on deck and two machine-guns on the lower bridge, while other crew pointed out survivors amongst the wreckage.

This war crime was extensively investigated in 1949, after it was reported by Yoshio Kashiki, who was one of the 200 or so wounded Japanese soldiers aboard Suez Maru that day.

Dozens of first hand accounts and sworn statements were taken from 22 individuals, suspects and eye witnesses, including signed confessions.

In it, a monument to the 414 UK POWs aboard Suez Maru whom the Japanese murdered was dedicated on 29 November 2013, the 70th anniversary of the massacre.