So, the journey went on, until what eventually turned out to be about 7 a.m. on the 1st October when a sudden screaming and commotion from the deck made us realise that something unexpected had happened. Suddenly, we heard a whistling sound, which we at first thought was a shell, but which later turned out to be a torpedo which had just missed our bows. Then there was a terrific explosion and the ship rocked violently - we all thought we had been hit by a shell, but actually we had been torpedoed. We found out later that we had been attacked by an American submarine, the U.S.S. "Grouper" (SS214), which was on a War Patrol in the China Sea. The Japanese were panic-stricken and running in all directions. The few POWs on deck at the time, including some sick POWs, were bundled down into the holds. The Japanese crew started to fire a gun, fitted to the bow of the ship and we could hear (and feel) the sound of depth charges being dropped.
The ship started to list slightly. Down below, we did not know what was happening and we could do nothing but just sit back and hope for the best. Suddenly, we heard the ominous sound of rushing water in the hold beneath us.
The torpedo had apparently struck the port side coal bunker and engine room, killing some of the crew and had strained the bulkhead dividing the compartment beneath us from the engine room, and the rushing sound we could hear was the water pouring through the damaged plates.
About an hour later, some of the Japanese crew lowered heavy timber beams into the space beneath us to attempt to reinforce the bulkhead. We could now hear the sound of the Japanese aircraft overhead, searching for the submarine, and we later found out that we had been torpedoed roughly two hundred miles south-east of Shanghai.
After a few hours we felt a bumping alongside, which turned out to be Japanese Navy ships, into which the Japanese troops and most of the crew was transferred.
A small hand-pump was lowered into our hold, and through a Japanese interpreter, we were informed that if we did not pump continuously, we would go down with the ship. After the pump had been lowered, the hatch covers were put in place, battened down, and tied with rope, which meant that our only supply of air was cut off. Four hundred odd men were in our hold, half of whom were unconscious by morning through lack of air, which was so bad that evening that the few candles we possessed would not remain alight. We had had no food or water for the past 36 hours, yet the will to live was so strong, that the pump was kept going through that hellish night. Four men would work it for about five minutes and would then be relieved by others. Under these conditions, five minutes seemed to stretch into eternity, and after pumping, one would stagger into a corner exhausted and gasping for breath. How many died that night will never be known.
Meanwhile, the water in the compartment beneath us was rising rapidly and causing the wooden beams to float from side to side, hammering the bulkhead. In the darkness, a few unfortunate men slipped into the block void below and were drowned or crushed by the beams.