Page 6 Advertisements Column 2

Manawatu Times, Volume 66, Issue 3, 4 January 1941, Page 6

Ex-Japanese Ships ADMIRABLY SUITED TO RAIDING THREE PERSONS DEAD The ex-Japanese motor-ship Tokyo Maru, which the Germans are apparently using as a supply and prison ship !for their raiders operating in the Pacific Ocean, is admirably suited to their purpose. Built in Japan in 1936 for the Osaka Syosen Kaisya, the Tokyo Maru has a gross tonnage of 6486 and was specially designed for the trade between Japan and Australia, in which jshe and her sister-ship Canberra Maru ran for a short while before the SinoJapr.nese war started. Both vessels also paid several visits to New Zealand ports, including Wellington. With a maximum speed of at least 20 knots, the Tokyo Maru was built, as were all recent Japanese vessels of this class, under Japanese naval supervision, and has a very large bunker oil capacity, giving her an exceptionally wide cruising radius. During the early part of the Sino-Japanese war she was taken over by the Japanese Government, and carried many thousands of Japanese troops to China. The other Japanese ship, the Manyo Maru, which has apparently been bought and armed by the Germans for raiding, is listed in Lloyd’s Register as a motor-ship of 2904 tons gross, buijt in Japan in 1937 for the Toyo Kfsen K.K. The Kulmerland, a German motorship of 7363 tons gross, the other raider mentioned, was built at Hamburg in 1929, and is owned by the Hamburg-Amerika Line,