[adventurous music plays]
Welcome to the storied shores of Corregidor Island
in Southeast Asia.
Perched at the entrance to Manila Bay, whoever controls
this tiny spit of land controls access to the Philippines.
In the 1500s, that's the Spanish.
By the turn of the 20th century, America takes over
and turns this place into one of the most heavily fortified
islands on Earth,
making Manila nearly invulnerable.
Nearly.
[cannon blasts]
[Josh] That is, until Imperial Japan arrives.
After a brutal invasion of resource-rich China in 1931,
Japan's ambition of empire spreads across the Pacific.
December 7th, 1941, about 5,300 miles that way,
the Japanese launch a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor...
[explosion blasts]
drawing the United States into World War II.
But just hours later, on December 8th, Japan begins
something even more daring, an invasion of the Philippines.
[incoherent shouting]
The assault overwhelms Filipino and American forces under
the command of General Douglas MacArthur, who's headquartered
on this very island.
In March of 1942, Corregidor falls,
MacArthur barely escapes with his life, famously vowing,
"I shall return."
With the Philippines now under Japanese control, prisoners of
war are sent to labor camps throughout South and East Asia
in vessels with conditions so inhumane that they soon garner
a sinister nickname -- "hellships."
These hellships are essentially floating
concentration camps with prisoners subjected to brutal
conditions leading to starvation, sickness,
and often death.
And because the Japanese deliberately disguised
the vessels within their convoys,
they become unintentional targets for the Allies,
who sink as many as 25 hellships, unknowingly sending
thousands of their comrades to a watery grave.
I have come to the Philippines on a mission to investigate
not one, but two hellships.
This is the Oryoku Maru, a one-time luxury liner that
became a tomb for hundreds of American prisoners.
Now, I have received an unprecedented invitation
from the U.S. government to join a daring military operation,
the exploration of the wreckage of the ship deep below
the surface to locate the remains of hundreds of
American heroes.
Then, a group of veterans, historians,
and underwater archaeologists is launching a search to find
another hellship that went down with over 1,000 POWs.
Known as the Hofuku Maru, this cargo ship was split in
half by a torpedo attack and has never been found.
But now, a shocking discovery in the Japanese archives has
revealed a potentially critical clue to her location.
This is a historic mission.
Finding the Hofuku Maru would mean locating one of
the largest remaining groups of World War II MIAs and honoring
the sacrifice of those prisoners.
And excavating the remains of the Oryoku Maru would bring
closure to their families and fulfill the promise that
no man is left behind.
The hunt for the hellships starts now.
The past is all around us.
Whoa! It's working!
A world of mystery.
This is the Thunderbolt! Yeah!
Danger.
Fire in the hole!
[Josh] Whoa!
And adventure.
That's gold!
Oh-ho!
Look at this place.
I travel to the far corners of the Earth to uncover
where legends end...
-The key! -It's the key! Whoo-hoo!
...and history begins.
OK, let's punch it.
I'm Josh Gates, and this is "Expedition Unknown."
My mission may be in the Philippines, but to find
a hellship, I'm behind the wheel of
an American classic.
Whoo! Ha-ha!
Here we go.
This here is a 1942 Willys, aka the original Jeep.
This quarter-ton 4x4 is as iconic to the U.S. Army
as an M16 machine gun.
Nearly 650,000 of these were made in World War II.
Eisenhower even called them
essential to the Allied victory.
Not as essential -- working brakes.
Oh, boy.
All along the road here, we're passing these special
pillars with distances on them,
but these are not simple mile markers.
They're here to remember one of World War II's
defining atrocities, the Bataan Death March.
Immediately after the Allied surrender of the Philippines,
the Japanese conduct a massive transfer of 80,000 prisoners.
But without enough trucks to move them, force the beaten
and malnourished men to march 65 miles on foot.
The three-day journey is historic in
its shocking brutality.
As many as 19,000 prisoners are killed along the way.
As horrifying as the Death March was, the Japanese had
other no less cruel ways of moving their prisoners,
including the nightmares at sea
that became known as the hellships.
I'm going to connect with a team hoping to locate one
of the hellships, but they've asked to meet me on
another of the 7,000 islands in the Philippines, this one
accessible only by water taxi.
All right, let's punch it.
So these boats are known as bangkas, and they are
an essential part of life here in the Philippines.
These big bamboo outriggers provide stability out here in
the open ocean. Sort of.
Hang on.
I do my best not to break out into a "Moana" medley until
we approach our destination.
Is that Capones?
Hell of a place for a meeting.
[epic music playing]
We pull up to the shores of Capones Island.
The valet must be off duty, so I thank my driver and jump
off a little early.
Once I wade to shore, it's only a few hundred
short steps straight uphill to my scheduled rendezvous.
-Hey. -Hi.
I sure hope you're Randy and Tim.
Welcome to Capones. I'm Randy Anderson.
27-year Navy veteran Randy Anderson is the founder
of the Hellships Memorial Foundation.
Tim Beckensall is the foundation's
lead historian.
And the island we're meeting on looks out onto a narrow sea
corridor heavily used by the Japanese during the war.
So there would have been convoys coming through here
all the time? -There would have been convoys,
warships, cargo ships, and hellships.
So let's talk about this -- you know, I feel like
I know a fair amount about World War II
and I have to confess, I'd really never heard
of these hellships. -You're not alone.
It's one of the lesser known atrocities of World War II.
[Josh] The Imperial Japanese Navy would force civilian shipping
vessels into the war effort, but only the ships that
transported POWs earned the epithet of "hellship."
[Randy] That's how the survivors described it.
It was hell. They were hellships.
[Josh] This is, sadly, not an understatement.
Prisoners would be loaded into the hellships by the thousands
and crammed into cargo holds so small it wasn't possible to
lie down to sleep.
The voyages could last weeks, with the metal-lined holds
turning into ovens in the tropical sun.
Yet the prisoners were rationed only a pint of
crudely-desalinated water a day,
and fed only a small amount of rice
with a teaspoon of dried fish or vegetables.
As a result, over 90% of the men were sick from
malnutrition, with little in the way of sanitation.
Do we know how many of these hellships there were?
Yeah, there's over 135 hellships.
And how many Allied POWs were moved around on these?
The best figures are between 120 and 125,000.
I'm sorry, 125,000 people?
-That's correct. -Wow!
Do we know how many died aboard the hellships?
Figures are 20,000 to 25,000 of those prisoners...
-Died on these ships. -Correct.
There was also another shocking cause of death for
the hellship POWs.
[explosions blasting]
[Josh] Attacks on the vessels by their own comrades, the Allies.
The Japanese would disguise the hellships among
their military convoys, so that when Allied aircraft attacked,
they would unknowingly bomb their own men.
As a result, up to 25 hellships were sunk by American
forces during the war, inadvertently sending thousands
of Allied POWs to the bottom of the Pacific.
[explosion blasts]
Of the hellships that were sunk, how many remain
unfound, unidentified?
-Well, I think there's six, definitely... -OK.
...that have not been identified,
the final resting place.
And of these six that are still out there, I understand
you have a lead on one. -Yes.
You're smiling. A hot lead?
It's extremely compelling, Josh.
OK. So this ship is called what?
It's called the Hofuku Maru.
[Josh] Of all the hellships, the Hofuku Maru was considered
one of the worst.
A freighter built in 1918 in Kobe, Japan, she was 385 feet
from stern to bow, but only 51 feet wide, with a smokestack
rising 50 feet off the deck and twin masts almost
80 feet high.
She had four separate cargo holds capable of carrying
almost 6,000 tons.
And it was into those holds that over 1,000 British
and 200 Dutch prisoners of war were loaded.
The Brits were from units captured during
the fall of Singapore and the Malayan campaign.
Many had already been forced to labor on Japan's so-called
"Death Railway" built across Burma.
The Dutch prisoners were largely members of the Royal
Netherlands East Indies Army, captured during Japan's
conquest of the islands of Indonesia.
The 1,289 prisoners sailed aboard the Hofuku Maru from
Singapore to the Philippines, where the ship put in
for repairs.
Then, on September 21, 1944, the Hofuku set sail from
Subic Bay, along with 10 other ships, en route to Japan,
when the convoy is spotted by planes from the carriers
USS Bunker Hill and USS Intrepid.
American planes are dispatched for an attack,
and the Hofuku Maru is hit with a bomb in her stern.
Moments later, though, an American Avenger
drops a torpedo, which strikes her square amidships.
[Tim] Right in the middle, it caused catastrophic damage.
-It breaks the back of the ship, and the ship splits in half... -Oh.
...and sinks within three minutes. -[Josh] Wow!
Several hundred POWs survive by swimming to shore,
where they're recaptured.
But most, more than 1,000, go down with the ship.
And so the million dollar question is,
where does this ship sink?
Well, conventional wisdom, Josh, is that it's another
30 nautical miles to the north.
The attack on the convoy took over six hours on
September 21st, with planes chasing the ships north
the entire time.
When it was over, seven of the convoy's 11 vessels had
been sunk, many as far as 30 miles up the coast, which is
where many think the Hofuku rests.
Well, we've done some extensive research in all
of the archives, and everything points to
the fact that that ship is in another location.
OK, and is that what we're holding here?
Absolutely.
We've got the data right here, Josh.
-[Josh] Can I see? -[Tim] Absolutely.
The first document you have there is an After-Action Report
from the Bunker Hill itself. -[Josh] 21st September, 1944.
And it says, "Four torpedoes -- 1 hit."
And then it says, "Damage -- sunk."
And it also says that it's identified as "Ship #2."
So does that mean it's the second ship
in the convoy? -Yes.
So we know that a ship has been sunk, but we don't know
that it's the Hofuku Maru,
and we don't really know where just yet.
No, at this stage, we don't know.
If we stick just to the American records,
we just know that a ship was sunk.
What other records are there?
Ah, well, so what we did is we tasked our lead researcher,
John Duresky, to go and look into the Japanese archives.
[Josh] Wow, OK. So this document is what?
This document is actually the After-Action Report written
by the Japanese this time.
The third member of the Foundation's team,
Duresky, has been investigating hellships for years and poured
through thousands of pages in Japanese to get the Hofuku's
story from the other side.
[Tim] Have a look at this here, Josh.
[Josh] Oh, this is a drawing of each of the positions
of the ships in the convoy. -Correct.
Can you see what is number two?
Number two, down here, translated as Hofuku
or Toyofuku Maru. -[Tim] That's correct.
-So that's our ship. -That's our ship.
So the Japanese report is confirming that the ship in
the number two position in the convoy is the Hofuku Maru.
Correct.
That's huge!
And if you turn the page, Josh,
"The Hofuku Maru is sunk."
So we now know that this torpedo that hits this ship in
the center is the Hofuku Maru.
-Correct. -That's correct.
OK, so that's incredible, but it doesn't tell us where
the ship is.
I got something else extra for you
that's gonna blow your mind. -OK.
We have an aerial photograph taken by the Americans.
Wait, where was this found?
This is actually part of the After-Action Report from
the Bunker Hill. -Just hiding in plain sight?
And it's an incredible photo.
This is taken from one of the planes?
It's taken from the lead Helldiver.
So I'm looking at a photo of the Japanese convoy?
[Tim] Yes.
And if we're talking about the number two ship,
that's this one? -That's the Hofuku Maru.
I'm sorry, I'm looking at a photo of this hellship just
before it sinks. -Minutes.
[Josh] And we can see the coast clearly here.
It's very identifiable, but, Josh, take a look over
here on the photograph. What do you notice?
Oh, my God! Is that where we are right now?
-We're standing right there. -[Josh] That's Capones Island.
[Randy] That's Capones Island.
This changes everything.
This is what they refer to in the business, guys,
as a smoking gun!
This is incredible.
This saddle here between these peaks, I mean,
that's where we're standing. -Yes, sir.
[Tim] Exactly where we're standing.
[Josh] On a remote island in the Philippines, team members
from the Hellships Memorial Foundation have just revealed
an archival photo of the Allied attack on the hellship
Hofuku Maru, one of the floating concentration camps used by
the Japanese during World War II.
The ship went down with over 1,000 POWs still inside,
and this discovery may reveal where it happened.
If you look closely at the photograph here in
the distance, you'll see a river.
That's the Santo Tomas River.
So now we know we have a north and south position that this
battle and the sinking occurs within.
[Josh] The Japanese archives and wartime images showing
the river and Capones Island in relation to the photo of
the Hofuku Maru give us a clear bounding box nearly 30 miles
away from where the ship was previously believed to be.
Then this hellship should be somewhere right out here.
-Yeah, that's correct, Josh. -So the question is, is it?
Well, that's what we're about to find out.
-You got a dive boat? -Yeah, we got more than that.
-OK. -Would you like to join us?
Hell yeah!
I return with Randy and Tim to shore, where a research vessel
awaits, one with a familiar face on board.
[Randy] Hi, guys.
-[Josh] What's up, man? -Hey, how are you, man?
-Great. -Good to see you.
[overlapping greetings]
Last time I saw you, we spent some very queasy days
at sea in Puerto Rico. -It was a little rough there.
-It was a little rough. -A little.
Just a little.
Evan Kovacs is an expert diver who designs and builds
world-class underwater sonar imaging systems.
We last worked together on my search in Puerto Rico for
the Clipper Endeavor. -Is that something?
Yeah, no, no -- we got something coming up right here.
And Josh, I want you to meet Dr. Calvin Mires.
-Great to meet you. -Nice to meet you.
Evan's colleague is Dr. Calvin Mires,
a marine archaeologist with over 25 years of
experience studying shipwrecks
all over the world.
So, the gang's all here.
-Let's get underway. -No time to waste.
All right, Kovacs is here, which means you must have some
alluring target if you've got him out here.
We have something really special, Josh.
OK, what do you have?
Well, Josh, we've got some reports from the local
fishermen that there's something down there -- large --
they're losing a lot of fishing nets on it
and lots of line.
Line, or maybe it's what we're looking for.
And it's in the area where that convoy passed?
It's right smack in the middle.
OK, perfect. Now I see why you're here.
-[Tim] Yeah. -[Josh] Yeah, exactly -- OK.
Every place we've found wrecks around the world,
there's always fishing line on them.
The fishermen, if it's near shore, they know where
the wrecks are.
[Josh] Intriguingly, in this same area, a local diver came across
an uncharted wreck in 2016.
Wreckage was also seen on a side-scan sonar,
but it remains unidentified.
Our plan is to head to this narrowed-down search zone
to investigate.
We have a search box about half a mile by half a mile.
Let's start looking. Let's try to find a target.
-Let's go hunting. -Come on.
Let's do it, guys.
We speed a few miles out to our destination.
And once we approach, we climb into the wheelhouse...
OK.
...where our pilot, Rob Homan, is manning the sonar array.
All right, guys, I think we're getting close to
the area of interest.
So now that we're out here,
we're just going to have to run some lanes.
All right, so run some lanes, meaning we're gonna go
back and forth.
About how long will each lane be?
About half a mile long from end to end, and then we're
about 90 feet wide.
OK, so the sonar's seeing about 45 feet off of each side
of the boat. -[Rob] That's correct.
[Josh] And bottom is pretty much featureless in here --
it's flat. -[Rob] Yeah.
[Josh] The bottom of the ocean here is smooth because in 1991,
Mount Pinatubo erupted about 30 miles from here,
spitting almost one and a half cubic miles of ash
into the atmosphere.
It's been settling onto the ocean floor ever since.
We see something, it's gonna -- it's gonna jump
out at us for sure.
This is the exciting part of searching.
Does anybody have coffee?
[Josh] You're right, just staring at a screen all day.
And it continues like this, looking at, well, nothing,
until...
Ooh-ooh-ooh.
Is that something or is that just the bottom?
I mean, it's kind of coming up there.
It's definitely something.
That's the first thing we've seen
that's kind of come up a little bit.
Here's another piece.
[Josh] Oh, there's more of this.
Now we're talking. What is that?
Let's zoom in a bit so we can get a better look.
-[Josh] Ooh! Wow. -That's a huge [bleep].
-Look at that. -Look at that.
-[Josh] That's sticking up... -20 feet high.
-20 feet off the bottom. -[Rob] Look at the color of it.
That dark color there, that tells us this is
something solid. -Something very solid.
This structure here is very hard.
-Straight edges. -[Josh] Big time.
So...
should we take a swim? -Yeah, please do.
Great. Let's get on it, guys.
Come on, let's do it.
We hurry back down to the deck while Captain Rob brings
the boat back around to our sonar hit.
OK, Josh, we're on it. Throw the shot.
[Josh] I throw in a shot line.
OK, shot's away!
A weighted cable that will land near our target so we can stay
in position during our dive.
Then Evan, Calvin, and I gear up and prepare to dive.
Our mission?
Get eyes on the wreck, photograph it, and look for
anything diagnostic to determine if
it's the Hofuku Maru.
But it won't be easy, and I'm admittedly nervous
about the target.
It's in the dark, nearly 175 feet deep, at the outer limits
of traditional scuba diving, which is why we're going to be
joined by technical divers Alex Santos and Ram Yoro.
-All right, what's the plan? -You and Alex are together.
-[Josh] OK. -[Evan] You guys are a team.
-He will be with you like glue. -Got it.
[Evan] Ram is going to be doing principal photography.
Calvin and I will be with you, documenting, looking around.
We'll see what we find.
Things to keep in mind, you're diving traditional
open circuit, twin tanks, scuba, just air.
We're diving closed circuit.
It's a very different technology.
Right, this is what we would call a rebreather system.
[Evan] Exactly.
[Josh] Rebreathers recycle oxygen, allowing Evan and Calvin to
stay underwater longer before needing to surface.
The traditional scuba tanks I'm using are less forgiving,
so I'm going to need to count the seconds once we hit bottom.
And if this is a wreck, I mean, diagnostically,
what are we looking for?
We're going to look for large features or structures.
A shipwreck looks very different than the regular
ship, so it's going to look kind of, you know, like puzzle
pieces that have been mixed up.
[Josh] Among the more distinct puzzle pieces are two masts,
a single smokestack, and the raised bridge area.
And if it is the Hofuku Maru, then she should be
in a couple of pieces.
I mean, this thing was split midships, right?
Yeah, that's what the historical record says.
[Josh] OK, so we have a plan.
And Randy and Tim, we should be able to communicate with
you through the comm system. -All right, great.
All right, guys, let's get wet. Come on.
One by one, we splash into the sea,
unsure of what awaits us below.
Josh, this is topside. Randy.
Got you loud and clear.
[Josh] There are a lot of reasons to stay alert.
In addition to the possibility of fishing nets and a jagged
wreck, this area is home to several species of shark,
including the aggressive bull shark.
But mostly, I'm worried about time.
Each minute spent at depth will cost me 10 times that amount
decompressing on the way up.
Otherwise, I risk a deadly buildup of nitrogen in
the blood known as "the bends."
[Randy speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Evan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
160 feet below the surface of the Pacific,
diver Evan Kovacs and I are part of a team searching
for the long-lost Japanese hellship, Hofuku Maru,
which sank in 1944,
taking over 1,000 Allied prisoners of war with her.
Now, we've just found something uncharted.
We got wreckage here!
-Repeat, this is a wreck! -No way!
Oh, man, that is so good.
-That's awesome. -[Randy] Yeah.
[Josh speaking]
[Evan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Evan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Calvin speaking]
[Josh] The Hofuku Maru was built in Kobe, Japan, in 1918,
which puts it well within Calvin's estimate.
[Evan and Josh speaking]
[Josh] We carefully swim along the length of the wreck.
It's seen better days.
[Evan and Josh speaking]
Are you seeing any markings of any kind, either Kanji
or English or anything?
[Josh speaking]
[Evan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
Topside, I'm looking, but I don't see any writing on it.
Copy that.
[Evan speaking]
[Josh speaking]
[Josh] The Hofuku Maru had two rear holds and two forward.
Between each pair, fore and aft, was a mast.
So finding one of the holds means we're hoping
somewhere around here is...
[Evan and Josh speaking]
[Josh] We continue working our way from the stern, passing deck
winches that would have once loaded cargo into the ship.
[Evan and Josh speaking]
[Josh] With my bottom time running dangerously low, Calvin and I
quickly take some measurements of the hold to compare later to
the ship's schematics.
[Josh and Evan speaking]
[Josh] Using a high-resolution underwater camera system,
Evan is going to use his remaining minutes on
the bottom to capture the wreck for a process known as
photogrammetry, which will allow him to build a detailed
3D model to help us identify the ship.
[Josh and Evan speaking]
[Josh] My tech diver Alex and I start the long trip back topside.
We've spent so long so deep that it takes over an hour
stopping along the way to re-acclimate to the pressure
and disperse the nitrogen in our blood.
Whoo!
I mean...
We got a wreck down there, guys.
-Excellent. -[overlapping talking]
-You know, no question. -Can you see any battle damage?
Parts of it look like a ship, and parts of it are just sort
of matchsticks down there.
So it definitely looks like a violent sinking, but I think
we've got to do more to figure out if this really is
the Hofuku Maru. -Yeah, absolutely.
We have to figure out if this wreck is split in two pieces.
Well, that's right, because we know the Hofuku Maru
was split in two pieces from the direct hit
of the torpedo amidships.
Right, but the problem is this wreck is so deep and our bottom
time is so limited, it could take us dozens of dives to
figure out what this thing is. -What if we brought in an ROV?
You got a deep water ROV hanging around?
[Randy] I don't have one handy.
However, I know where there is one.
That would be a game changer, right?
Because then we could spend as much time as we want looking
around down there. -[Randy] Absolutely.
And we can figure out whether it is in two pieces.
Right. But I mean, a great start.
-Great start. -That's an amazing start.
[Josh] Yeah.
Randy and Tim will hunt down an ROV and Evan will continue
his photogrammetry analysis on our mystery wreck.
While we wait, though, there's more than one hellship
in these waters to investigate, and I have a special invitation
from the U.S. Military
to join them on a state-of-the-art operation to
leave no man behind.
By the light of a new day, I drive 30 miles to a place
that, for a century, was one of America's largest
overseas bases -- this is Subic Bay.
At its peak, the U.S. naval base here
took up 262 square miles,
roughly the size of Singapore.
But in 1944, this prime real estate fell into the hands of
Imperial Japan.
It is also the scene of perhaps the most notorious hellship
sinking of the war.
Back in October of 1944, just a month after
the hellship Hofuku Maru was sunk,
Japan's Navy faced the ultimate reckoning.
General MacArthur, whose U.S. forces
had been driven from the Philippines by
the Japanese, made good on his promise to return.
On October 20th, MacArthur leads American troops at
the Battle of Leyte Gulf, an amphibious and air assault
that's bigger than D-Day.
In fact, it's the largest naval battle in world history.
Over 200,000 men on 400 ships
go toe-to-toe on the high seas.
And when it ends, 15,000 men are dead.
The Japanese fleet is crippled, and their retreat from
the Philippines begins.
As the Japanese evacuate Manila, they load American
captives onto an infamous hellship known as
the Oryoku Maru.
Now, much like the Hofuku Maru, the ship I've been looking for,
this ship was also bombed by U.S. forces,
who were unaware there were prisoners aboard.
But in this case, we know exactly where
the Oryoku Maru sank, because it happened just
500 feet offshore here in Subic Bay, taking hundreds of
American POWs with her.
Now, an agency of the U.S. Military
is staging a massive recovery effort to try to
repatriate these honored dead.
And as I approach their center of operations,
it's clear they mean business.
Behold, the USNS Salvor.
Look at this thing!
We're definitely not going to need a bigger boat.
Oh-ho, wow! That's serious.
I'm in Subic Bay in the Philippines
about to join the U.S. Military
on a bold and dangerous mission.
OK, guys, thanks for the lift.
-Hey, permission to come aboard? -Permission granted.
Welcome aboard the USNS Salvor.
-You must be Josh. -I am -- nice to meet you.
I'm Captain Arrigoni. How are you doing today?
I'm doing awesome. Thank you for having me.
Tell me about the ship.
She's one of two salvage vessels operated by
U.S. Military Sealift Command.
[Josh] The Salvor here is a multifunctional platform
capable of salvage, dive operation support,
and firefighting.
She even assisted in the recovery of
the Orion capsule in 2014. -[Josh] Amazing.
And how many aboard?
49 people aboard, and the one that you're waiting
to see is up on the bow. -Captain.
-Good to meet you. -Pleasure.
I head to the pointy end of this 255-foot, 3,000-ton ship
and meet DPAA forensic underwater archaeologist
Meghan Mumford.
And so for folks who don't know, and they should,
what is the DPAA?
DPAA is the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency,
and our mission is to provide
the fullest possible accounting of U.S. service members
who have paid the ultimate sacrifice to
their families in our nation.
And how many American POWs or MIAs are there worldwide?
We have 81,000 still unaccounted for.
-81,000? -[Meghan] Yes.
OK.
And so this current mission that you're undertaking is
one of recovery? -Yes.
We're here to attempt to recover the remains of
U.S. service members who were also prisoners of war
on the Oryoku Maru.
And so where is the wreck of the Oryoku Maru?
It's actually directly under us.
The ship is moored over the site.
[Josh] There's a Japanese hellship right beneath us.
[Meghan] Yes.
OK, and so help me understand how
this mission works. -Well, if you come with me,
I'll show you. -Yeah, please.
Meghan leads me through the bowels of the Salvor on
the way to its heart.
Up, up, up.
The bridge.
-Josh, welcome to the bridge. -Thank you.
-How's it going, guys? -How's it going, sir?
How are you? Wow.
Incredible.
OK.
Here is a look at the Oryoku Maru in her prime.
[Josh] This was a really impressive vessel, actually.
[Meghan] Yeah, it was actually a luxury passenger and cargo liner.
[Josh] The Oryoku Maru was a 388-foot steam liner built in 1936 with
opulent accommodations for up to 1,000 passengers, plus room
for cargo, which was stored in four holds below deck.
December 13th, 1944.
Approximately 1,600 American prisoners are marched through
the streets of Manila.
Many had already survived the Bataan Death March
and the invasion of Corregidor.
And now they're loaded onto the Oryoku Maru for a journey
to labor camps in Japan and not inside the ocean liner's
luxury staterooms.
800 Allied officers are instead deposited into Cargo Hold 4
in the aft of the ship, while 600 enlisted men are
crammed into Hold number 1 in the bow.
The remaining 200 enlisted are
placed just behind them in Hold 2.
The cargo holds are unventilated and sweltering.
In fact, over 100 POWs succumb to suffocation and dehydration
in their first day at sea.
The hellship, part of a Japanese convoy,
passes through Subic Bay, where it's spotted by planes
from the American aircraft carrier USS Hornet,
who attack what they believe is a military target with
air-to-ground rockets and 500-pound bombs.
And we have a photo here of the aftermath of that
initial attack.
Wow, so this is an aerial photo taken by a U.S. plane?
Yes.
[Josh] And so we see the Oryoku Maru here.
It looks like it's damaged, but this does not sink it.
[Meghan] This does not sink it.
The morning of the 15th, aircraft again spot Oryoku Maru
here in Subic Bay and begin to attack it again.
[Josh] Bombs rip open some of the holds, sending prisoners
streaming into the ocean.
In this image, we can actually see where one of those
500-pound bombs made a direct hit to the stern of the ship
and set the aft deck ablaze. -This is an amazing photo.
First of all, this is right where we are anchored
right now. -[Meghan] Yes.
[Josh] And yeah, we see plumes of
smoke coming out of the back of the ship.
And what is all this in the water?
[Meghan] So these are actually the POWs swimming to shore, as the ship
is on fire and sinking. -Oh, my God.
1,300 prisoners swam for shore, many of them either
drowned or were shot by the Japanese in the water.
Those that did make landfall were rounded up and sent back
to labor camps on other hellships.
But the DPAA is here for the men who never made it
off the Oryoku.
And so how many POWs remain inside the ship when
she goes down?
250 prisoners of war are possibly still
in the holds of the ship. -Wow.
A year after the war, the U.S. Military
attempts to recover the POWs on the Oryoku,
but a pressure breach causes an explosion that forces them
to abandon the effort.
Eighty years later, the wreck's condition has
deteriorated to an even more dangerous state.
But the DPAA is undeterred, bringing an arsenal of
21st-century technology to the mission.
So, if the divers in '46 were largely unsuccessful, is it
possible to reach these three cargo holds?
Well, that's what I've spent the last two and a half years
trying to figure out.
OK, and what'd you come up with?
-Well, let's walk through it. -OK, what do we got?
So the first thing we did was actually conduct a large-scale
remote sensing survey of the wreck with sonar.
OK, and so this is our ship here.
[Meghan] This is our ship here, yes.
[Josh] And actually, for all of the hell that she's been
through, it is largely still in one piece.
Meghan and her team have performed every possible
kind of survey and scan on the Oryoku Maru,
from ROV scouting to photogrammetry,
in order to create a scale profile view
of the wreck that they could line up with
the original blueprints.
So here we've got our profile of the ship, you know, as it
existed originally, but all of this structure is
still remaining. -Yes.
This is where Hold 1 and 2 would have been, and this is
where we think they are now.
And what we wanted to do specifically is see where
potential damage has been inflicted to the Hold 1,
Hold 2, and Hold 4 area, and also how could
we potentially access these spaces.
So in your final analysis looking at all this,
do you think there is a way into these holds?
So through our investigations, we identified potential points
of access, which may actually allow us to get into
the Hold 1 space.
Got it.
The possible entry point has been buried in the sand,
so the DPAA has spent weeks excavating with vacuum dredges
to reach it.
Today is the day they're finally going to see if
it's there, and I get to join the team going down.
Meghan brings me to the Salvor's main deck,
which is a hive of activity.
All right, Josh, welcome to our dive side.
This is really the base of operations for all of
the diving that we do while we're here on mission.
I see a lot of different logos on these T-shirts.
[Meghan] Yes, we have a tremendous team from multiple different
military units.
[Josh] For this unique mission, the DPAA has assembled some of
the nation's best trained divers, including members of
the Navy's Mobile Diving and Salvage,
Experimental Dive Unit,
and the U.S. Coast Guard.
-How's it going, everybody? -Yo.
-Hey. -[Josh] Hey, how are you?
In terms of these divers, these are what we would say
hardhat divers, right? -[Meghan] Yes.
These are not guys down there wearing scuba tanks.
[Meghan] Exactly.
All of these individuals are hardhat
or surface-supplied divers.
And so what the surface-supplied diving allows us to do
is not only penetrate the wreck in the areas that we need to
excavate safely, but they're able to stay
down longer. -Amazing.
This is what my father did for a living.
He was a hardhat diver, so this is awesome to be able to see up
close and personal. -[Meghan] Wow -- absolutely.
[Josh] Leading the team will be sergeant and master diver
Bryan Crowley. And I'll be diving with
U.S. Navy EOD tech Nick Welegala.
And EOD stands for what?
-Explosive Ordnance Disposal. -Oh, perfect.
Are we going to be running into explosives down there?
It's entirely possible.
The ship had two anti-aircraft guns that were fired.
They were carrying cargo.
We know it was bombed with rockets and 500-pound bombs.
So it's entirely possible
we could see something in our dive.
It's a very dynamic and dangerous site.
It's been down there for over 80 years.
There's tons of shifting structures.
There's sharp edges.
And all of this is compounded by
possible unexploded ordnance or UXOs.
But I'm sure the visibility is perfect down there,
guys, crystal clear? -[all] No.
OK, great, perfect.
-Bad viz? -[Bryan] Bad viz.
On a good day, you're looking at 5 to 10 feet,
but as soon as you touch bottom,
you're looking at zero visibility.
OK, so what's our plan for this dive?
So I need you two to go down there and actually assess if
we do have the Hold 1 hatch opening so that we can
potentially get down into the hold space.
Right, so dredging's been done.
If we can get into that hold area.
[Meghan] Exactly.
That is absolutely critical for our mission.
We need to be able to access this hold space where
the prisoners of war were actually held so that we can
eventually find remains and repatriate them.
Got it.
All right, should we get suited up?
Let's do it.
[Josh] Nick and I prep scuba gear for our dive.
If we can determine that the entrance to Hold 1 has
been exposed by the dredges,
the hardhat team will splash in and get to work.
And once we're geared up
an unnerving reality sets in.
I'm about to come face-to-face with the Oryoku Maru.
Divers, can you hear me?
[Josh] Yeah, Meghan, I read you loud and clear.
[Nick and Josh speaking]
[Josh] Even with this visibility, it's hard to believe there's
a massive wreck right here that I can't see.
Well, believe it.
[Josh and Nick speaking]
[Josh] We swim silently through the ruins of one of the largest
wrecks I've ever seen. It's also one of the eeriest.
The grave of at least 250 Americans, who were tragically
unable to see the end of the war for which they gave
the ultimate sacrifice.
[Josh] The plan is to start at the bow and work back
to Hold 1.
We're hoping that the military's recent dredging
efforts will have revealed a way inside.
[Nick and Josh speaking]
Both divers, if you're at the bow, the Hold 1 hatch
area should be approximately 80 feet aft of your position.
[Josh and Nick speaking]
[Josh] From the plans of the Oryoku, we know that from here,
Hold 1 should be not far from our current position.
This mission hinges on finding an entryway into that hold,
but when you can't see two feet in front of your face,
that's easier said than done.
[Josh] We've confirmed it.
The DPAA's dredges have revealed an entrance
into Hold number 1.
It's a careful celebration, though, since the wreck is
covered in rusty, jagged metal and potentially hiding
unexploded ordnance.
[Nick and Josh speaking]
[Josh] The past is filled with secrets, to be discovered.
I never seen anything like this.
I don't think anybody has.
And the answers are out there.
Oh, that's so incredible.
Let's go find them.
We might be really close to those remains now.
We can do what we came here for and bring
our grandfathers home.
It says USA. That's from an American POW.
And here we are in front of the window.
OK, I'm scanning here. I'm scanning here.
That's gold! That's gold!
-Troy, get over here! -No.
That's a lock! That's a jar!
-Well done! -Unbelievable!
-Take it nice and easy, Josh. -This is terrifying.
-It's a waterfall. -How "Goonies" is this?
We're not just chasing history.
Hunting for treasure on jet skis.
We're making history.
Oh, my God!
Are we looking at the Hofuku Maru?
On an all-new season of "Expedition Unknown."