POWs endure hell on the Oryoku Maru

14th December 1944: US prisoners on a Japanese 'Hell Ship' come under attack from planes from the USS Hornet

The Oryoku Maru pictured before the war.

George L. Curtis had been a manager for the Packard company in Manila, Philippines when war broke out. 1942 had seen him taken prisoner by the Japanese along with all surviving US service personnel on the islands. He was to endure the horrors of the Japanese prison camps for the next two years.