Tatsuta Maru

Tatsuta Maru was a Japanese ocean liner owned by Nippon Yusen Kaisha, built in 1927 to 1929 by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding and Engineering at Nagasaki and named after Tatsuta Shrine in Nara Prefecture. She was laid down on 3 December 1927 as yard number 451 and launched on 12 April 1929, and a fire on 7 February 1930 damaged her severely when she was almost complete. With her sisters Asama Maru and Chichibu Maru she served the premier high-speed Orient to California route, with fares from 190 dollars in second class, and the 16,975-ton ship had four Mitsubishi-Sulzer diesel engines and a service speed of 21 knots. In 1936 she became the first civilian vessel to pass under the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. After serving as a diplomatic exchange vessel in 1941 and 1942 she was requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Navy as a troopship, and she was sunk by the American submarine Tarpon on 8 February 1943 with a loss of 1,223 soldiers and passengers and 198 crew.