Hell ship

A hell ship is a ship with extremely inhumane living conditions or with a reputation for cruelty among the crew. It now generally refers to the ships used by the Imperial Japanese Navy and Imperial Japanese Army to transport Allied prisoners of war (POWs) and rōmusha (Asian forced slave laborers) out of the Philippines, the Dutch East Indies, Hong Kong and Singapore in World War II. These POWs were taken to the Japanese Islands, Formosa, Manchukuo, Korea, the Moluccas, Sumatra, Burma, or Siam to be used as forced labor. The terms "hell" and "hell ship" were used by American POWs to describe the terrible conditions and cruel treatment they received on board British ships during the American Revolutionary War. American soldiers who refused to swear their allegiance to Britain were imprisoned in old ships and an estimated 11,000 of them died in the process. HMS Jersey was the largest and most notorious of all as it was designed to hold 400 sailors, but during the war, up to 1,100 men were cramped into the ship. When the British left New York City in 1783, they set fire to the Jersey with prisoners still on board. During World War II, the term "hell ship" was coined by Allied prisoners of war to refer to merchant vessels requisitioned by the Empire of Japan to transport POWs and forced labourers to various locations under Japanese control. According to American historian Gregory F. Michno, during World War II 134 Japanese "hell ships" transported roughly 126,000 Allied POWs via more than 156 voyages. During the war, the Japanese engaged in the widespread use of forced labour, including from Allied POWs, to produce the vast quantities of materials needed to maintain military operations. As such, these ships were used to transfer POWs to areas where they would forcibly produce material for Japan's war effort. Conditions onboard these vessels were abysmal, with passengers being frequently denied access to adequate food, drink and bathroom facilities while being placed into cramped conditions.