Rank and Name,Private Earl Kenneth Akin.

Unit/Placed in,60th Coast Artillery Regiment.

Arisan Maru

The Arisan Maru was a Hell Ships sunk on Oct. 24, 1944.

The Arisan Maru, sailed from Manila on October 10, 1944 for Japan. This ship was sunk by the American submarine,USS Snook (Shark?) with three torpedoes, east of Hong Kong, on October 24, 1944. There were 1800 POWs aboard – 1793 died. Eight men survived this sinking. Two days later, five of the survivors were rescued by a Chinese fishing junk. The Chinese helped them reach American Air Corps forces. Other survivors were recaptured by a Japanese destroyer and taken to Formosa.

This Hell Ship sank in the South China Sea making it the worst naval disaster in the history of the United States.

Earl is born on May 26, 1920 in Twin Falls, Idaho.

Father, Robert J. Akin.

Mother, Bertha A. (French) Akin.

Sister, Mabel F. Akin.

Earl enlisted the U.S.Army in Oregon with service number # 19020628.

Earl died as a Pow onboard the Arisan Maru when it Sunk on Oct. 24, 1944, he is honored with a Purple Heart, POW Medal, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal and the WWII Victory Medal.

Earl is buried/mentioned at Manila American Cemetery and Memorial  Manila, Metro Manila, National Capital Region, Philippines.

Wall of the missing.

Thanks to https://www.wrecksite.eu/wreck.aspx?57991 ABMC, https://abmc.gov  http://navylog.navymemorial.org ,  Jean Louis Vijgen , Familysearch.com  https://www.familysearch.org Philippine Scouts Heritage Society http://www.philippine-scouts.org/ Sean Cojenos, Honorstates http://www.honorstates.org,  Geoffrey Roecker https://missingmarines.com/ P.O.W. : http://www.mansell.com/pow-index.html  Wes Injerd, Dwight Rider, Armand Hendriks https://hendrikswebdesign.nl/