Taiyo Maru
1926
(Carlo Marquart CM-202)
- Type: Passenger / general cargo
- Displacement: 14,457 tons
- Dimensions: 580 x 65 x 28 ft.
- Machinery: Steam reciprocating, twin screws = 19 knots
- Passengers: 344 all first class
- Builder: Blohm & Voss, Hamburg, Germany, 1911
- Service: Built as Cap Finisterre for Hamburg Sud Amerika Linie. After World War I, acquired by US Navy and commissioned as transport USS Cap Finisterre 11 Apr 1919; decommissioned 25 Nov 1919. Allocated to the Japanese government as war reparations in 1920. Management passed to Toyo Kisen Kabushiki Kaisha in 1921; renamed Taiyo Maru. Sailed trans-Pacific routes between Hong Kong, Shanghai, Kobe, Yokohama, Honolulu, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Toyo Kisen merged with Nippon Yusen Kaisha in 1926.
On 22 Oct 1941 she departed Yokohama for Hawaii with three IJN officers aboard to scout out the route the Japanese striking force would follow one month later on the way to Pearl Harbor. Also collected intelligence assembled by Japanese consulate in Honolulu. Sailed for Japan 5 Nov, arriving 17 Nov just in time for briefing of Japanese midget submarine crews. Sunk by American submarine Grenadier in the China Sea, 8 May 1942.
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