On December 14, 1944, the Japanese ship (passenger liner) Oryoku Maru, carrying more than 1,600 American prisoners of war, was in Subic Bay near Sueste Point, where she was attacked by American navy bombers and fighters from U.S.S. Hornet (CV-12) and Cabot (CVL-29). On board the auxiliary transport ship were 547 Japanese women and children, 1500 Imperial Japanese Army troops and 1,127 passengers.
One of the American naval aviators who took part in the bombings, Lt. John Francis Thompson from carrier USS Cabot, was shot down by anti-aircraft guns of the Oryoku Maru. He was listed as Missing-In-Action.
80 years since his death, we remember the sacrifice and the ultimate price given by Lt. Thompson in the process of liberating the Philippines in WWII. Last year, a group of Americans, Australians and Filipinos; the Philippine MIA Search and Recovery Project, embarked on a search for Lt. Thompson’s crash site in the waters off Sueste Point, Subic Bay.
The search for the remains of Lt. Thompson continues under the Philippine MIA Search and Recovery Project led by Lieutenant Commander Gerald Randy Anderson, Sr. (US Navy, retired), and I am proud that Bamban WWII Museum representatives had taken a very small part in the effort.
Last December 15, 2024, a special ceremony was held at the Hellships Memorial in Subic, Zambales in attendance of Filipinos, Americans and other important guests to remember the American Prisoners of War (POWs) perished in December 1944. Dr. Rico Jose (U.P. Department of History), foremost Filipino historian and an authority in WWII History in the Philippines, accompanied by Mr. Tony Feredo, an expert and another Filipino WWII historian, attended the said event.
An original Japanese painting of the Oryoku Maru and other Japanese ships on convoy on the waters off Subic, will be donated to the Bamban WWII Museum for permanent exhibit.
