The Fujikawa Maru was originally built in 1938 for the Toyo Kaiun Kisen Kaisha and was requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Navy

Imperial Japanese Navy

The Imperial Japanese Navy was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...

 during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 for use as an armed aircraft transport or ferry.

She was sunk in Truk Lagoon

Truk Lagoon

Truk Lagoon, also known as Chuuk, is a sheltered body of water in the central Pacific. North of New Guinea, it is located mid-ocean at 7 degrees North latitude. The atoll consists of a protective reef, around, enclosing a natural harbour 79 by 50 kilometres , with an area of . It has a land...

 during Operation Hailstone

Operation Hailstone

Operation Hailstone was a massive naval air and surface attack launched on February 17–18, 1944, during World War II by the United States Navy against the Japanese naval and air base at Truk in the Caroline Islands, a pre-war Japanese territory.-Background:Truk was a major Japanese logistical base...

 and is now a leading wreck diving

Wreck diving

Wreck diving is a type of recreational diving where shipwrecks are explored. Although most wreck dive sites are at shipwrecks, there is an increasing trend to scuttle retired ships to create artificial reef sites...

 site for scuba divers

Scuba diving

Scuba diving is a form of underwater diving in which a diver uses a scuba set to breathe underwater....

.

History

The Fujikawa Maru was requisitioned in 1940 by the Japanese Navy, and was based in Indo-China under the command of the 11th Fleet. She saw service in the Battle of Midway

Battle of Midway

The Battle of Midway is widely regarded as the most important naval battle of the Pacific Campaign of World War II. Between 4 and 7 June 1942, approximately one month after the Battle of the Coral Sea and six months after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States Navy decisively defeated...

 as part of AiRon 7. On 12 September 1943 she was hit by a torpedo fired by the U.S. Submarine Permit

USS Permit (SS-178)

USS Permit , a Porpoise-class submarine, was the first ship of the United States Navy to be named for the permit.Her keel was laid on 6 June 1935 by the Electric Boat Company, Groton, Connecticut; launched on 5 October 1936 sponsored by Mrs. Harold G. Bowen, and commissioned on 17 March 1937,...

, and returned to Japan for repairs. Subsequently on 5 December 1943 she was hit by torpedo bombers from the USS Yorktown

USS Yorktown (CV-5)

was an aircraft carrier commissioned in the United States Navy from 1937 until she was sunk at the Battle of Midway in June 1942. She was named after the Battle of Yorktown in 1781 and the lead ship of the Yorktown class which was designed after lessons learned from operations with the large...

 suffering minor damage. From thence she was taken to Truk Lagoon to undergo repairs.

On 17–18 February 1944 she was hit repeatedly by US bombers and torpedo bombers as part of Operation Hailstone, before she finally sank on 18 February at approximately 7.15am.

Dive site

The Fujikawa Maru is regarded as the best scuba diving site in Truk Lagoon by both of the principal authors who have undertaken comprehensive surveys of the lagoon, Dan E. Bailey and Klaus Lindemann.

Amongst the more striking features on the wreck are four disassembled fighter aircraft in one of the forward holds. Three of the aircraft are Zero fighters and the fourth is an A5M "Claude" fighter. The vessel also boasts a 6 inch bow gun, left over from the Sino-Japanese war

Sino-Japanese War

There were two wars known as the Sino-Japanese War :* The First Sino-Japanese War between China and Japan , primarily over control of Korea....

 and retrofitted.

The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

named it as one of the top 10 wreck dives in the world, and Aquaviews ranked it as the fourth best wreck dive in the world.