The Hitachi Maru Incidet（常陸丸事件） was occured during Russo-Japanese War(1904-1905), in which three Japanese military ships were attacked by a Russian commerce raiding sortie by a Vladiovostok-based armored cruiser squadron of the Imperial Russian Navy.
In this incident, two ships(Hitachi Maru, Izumi maru) were sunked and One ship was grounded.
Hitachi Maru was a 6,172 GRT combined passenger-cargo ship built by Mitsubishi Shipbuilding.
She was the largest passenger-cargo ship of its time in Japan.
In the incident, Hitachi Maru was transporting 1,238 people, including 727 men of the 1st Resereve Regiment of the Imperial Guard of Japan and 359 men from the Imperial Japanese Army 10th Division.
When Hitachi Maru encountered the Vladivostok Fleet, she tried to escape backward at full speed, but one of the Vladivostok Fleet's guns hit the engine of the Hitachi Maru, which was then hit by about 100 rounds of close-range fire, causing many casualties and engine rupture, and soon after, broke out on the third deck.
Officers committed seppuku(ritual suicide), shot themselves, and threw themselves into the sea, and the death toll reached 1,091: 958 in the army, 3 in the navy, and 130 crew members.
The detailed sunken location has been unknown, but in May 2023, based on local information, an underwater drone surey for a TV program succeeded in discovering the undersea ruins of the Hitachi Maru.
The wreck lies at a depth of 80 meter, 80 minutes' travel from the port, and is believed to contain a large number of remains.
We are planning to conduct the first diving expedition in July 2025 with a TV crew, but since the wreck is in the open ocean, strong currents and waves are expected and it will be a challenging expedition.
The major goal is to record and recover the remains of the many victims.
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