Cruise of Death: 49 Days of Death and Madness Aboard Japanese Hell Ships

Cruise of Death , first published in November 1945 and based on a series of articles in the Chicago Daily News, is a record of the horrific experience of Allied prisoners-of-war during their tortuous 49-day land and sea journey from Manila to Japan during World War II. Of the original 1600 POWs who started on the journey aboard the ill-fated Japanese ship Oryoku Maru (sunk soon after leaving Manila Bay), by the time the exhausted men reached Japan, there were only 300 survivors, the rest dying from thirst, hunger, disease, execution, and friendly fire from American planes. To prepare the story, author George Weller interviewed survivors of the journey in Japan and aboard U.S. hospital ships and at U.S. bases in the Pacific. Weller (1907 - 2002) was an American novelist, playwright, and journalist for The New York Times and Chicago Daily News. In 1943 he won the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting as a war correspondent for the Daily News. Included are 19 pages of maps and illustrations.