On October 24, 1944, an unmarked Japanese freighter, the Arisan Maru, was torpedoed and sunk by an American submarine in the South China Sea at Bashi Straits. Either USS Shark II or USS Snook may have been responsible. The ship, known as a Hell Ship, carried 1800 POWs crammed shoulder to shoulder in its holds on their way to slave labor in Japan after more than two and a half years of captivity in the Philippines under inhumane conditions. Only nine men survived: M/SGT Calvin R. Graef, Sgt Avery E. Wilber, Sgt Philip Brodsky, Cpl Donald E. Meyer, Cpl Tony Cichy, Cpl Glenn S. Oliver, PFC Charles W. Hughes, Boatswain Martin Binder, and Mr. Robert S. Overbeck. It was the worst maritime tragedy in U.S. history.