SS Tjisalak SS " Tjisalak " was a 5 , 787 - ton Dutch freighter with passenger accommodation built in 1917 for the Java - China - Japan Lijn and used by the Allies during World War II to transport supplies across the Indian Ocean between Australia and Ceylon . On 26 March 1944 , she was torpedoed and sunk by the Japanese submarine " I - 8 " while traveling unescorted . The freighter ' s crew were subsequently massacred in an infamous naval war crime . The Sinking . " Tjisalak " was sailing from Melbourne and Colombo with a cargo of flour and mail . The crew of 80 consisted of Dutch , Chinese and English merchant seamen , plus ten Royal Navy gunners manning the ship ' s four - inch gun . Also on board were five passengers ( including an American Red Cross nurse , Mrs . Verna Gorden - Britten ) and 22 Laskar sailors returning to India after the loss of their ship . " Tjisalak " had been travelling for 19 days , when her captain became confused by an unusual wireless message from Perth , and changed his course , sailing at to conserve fuel . At 5 : 45 am on 26 March 1944 , she was struck by a torpedo from " I - 8 " . One passenger , a Lieutenant Dawson from Australia , was killed instantly , and the ship began to list to port . The order was given to abandon ship . Most of the crew obeyed , taking to the ship ' s boats and liferafts , but the British gunners and the Dutch gun commander , second officer Jan Dekker , remained on board , waiting for the Japanese submarine to appear and opened fire . " I - 8 " responded with her own deckgun , forcing the gunners to abandon ship . The Massacre . Once in the water , the 105 survivors were collected by the Japanese , who placed them on " I - 8 " s deck and ordered Captain Hen into the conning tower to confer with the Japanese commander , Tatsunosuke Ariizumi . Survivors reported Hen as shouting " " No , no , I don ' t know . " " At that moment , a Chinese sailor slipped into the water and was shot . The Japanese then tied the survivors together in pairs and walked them aft around the conning tower , where they were attacked with various weapons . Four men jumped or fell from the submarine while being attacked and survived the random gunfire from three Japanese sailors seated behind the conning tower . These were Chief Officer Frits de Jong , Second Officer Jan Dekker , Second Wireless Operator James Blears and Third Engineer Cees Spuybroek . A Laskar named Dhange also survived the massacre . After the Japanese had killed all but about twenty of the prisoners , they tied the remainder to a long rope , pushed them overboard , and then submerged . Dhange , the last man on the tow rope , managed to free himself before he drowned . The Survivors . The survivors swam several miles through the open ocean back to the location of the sinking , where they found an abandoned liferaft . Three days later they spotted a distant shape , which approached them . She was an American Liberty ship , SS " James O . Wilder " . After briefly firing on them by mistake , the Americans rescued the survivors and took them to Colombo . As merchant seamen , the " Tjisalak " survivors were ineligible for treatment at both the British military and civilian hospitals , and had to arrange for accommodations at their own expense . Aftermath . The crew of " I - 8 " committed similar atrocities against the crew of the Liberty ship SS " Jean Nicolet " , and possibly other ships from which no one survived . Captain Ariizumi committed suicide when Japan surrendered in August 1945 , but three members of the crew were located and prosecuted for their participation . Two were convicted and served prison terms which were commuted by the Japanese government in 1955 . The third was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against his former shipmates .