Predictably, when the world’s most famous movie couple, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks embarked on the final leg of their latest round-the-world tour at the end of 1929, a trip that had included calls at Europe, Africa and the Far East, they chose the most modern passenger liner in the world to convey them homewards across the Pacific. One might be surprised, however, to learn that the ship Mary and Doug travelled on was not an American vessel, but a Japanese one, the MS Asama Maru. One of the forgotten ‘floating palaces’ from the golden age of transoceanic travel, the Asama Maru was to have as dramatic and eventful a career as any one of her more illustrious counterparts in the West.
The Asama Maru was the first of three modern passenger liners constructed for the Japanese shipping line Nippon Yusen Kaisha (Japan Mail Shipping) in an effort to increase its share of the high-end transpacific passenger trade. NYK, which was headquartered in Yokohama, dominated trade between Japanese home ports and its exterior provinces, and also transhipped freight and passengers throughout the Pacific region, in competition with imperial British and American lines. The ship was laid down on 10th September 1927 at the Mitsubishi shipyard in Nagasaki, being launched a little over a year later on 30th October 1928. She was delivered to her owners on 7th October 1929 at a total construction cost of $6 million dollars. Measuring 583ft in length, the Asama Maru was designed to accommodate 833 passengers; 222 of those in first-class cabins; and 330 crew.
Although registering a modest 17,000 gross tons, the Asama Maru was the largest motor-boat ever built in Japan. The use of diesel engines in large passenger ships was a relatively new innovation, the first analogous example, the New Zealand liner Aorangi, having been commissioned in 1925. Both vessels utilized engines built by the Swiss firm Sulzer. Combustion engines had obvious advantages over traditional steam-powered vessels, requiring no furnaces, boilers, or stokers. Consequently, they made for cooler, cleaner, and more reliable engine rooms. In addition, reductions in exhaust gases meant fewer funnels were necessary; the Asama Maru carried two, but one was purely cosmetic, merely advertising the company colours; two red stripes bordered by three white ones.
Even before Doug and Mary helped raise her profile in America, the ship had interested the US media. Her arrival in Los Angeles harbour on her maiden voyage at the end of October 1929 had been covered by the LA Times. One article made much of the ‘super-motor’ vessel’s advanced technology:
‘Every device of modern navigation and sea communication has been utilised in her design, including the Sperry gyroscopic compass and automatic steersman, radio direction finder and compass – while her motor-driven lifeboats have radio equipment and searchlights and carry electric devices for heating and cooking.’
The ‘harmonious’ decoration of her public rooms also received praise:
‘Among the most salient examples: the smoking room finished in early Tudor style; the swimming pool, in Roman style with large cylindrical columns and a marble fountain; the lounge, an immense room two decks high and decorated in Georgian motif; the dining room, also in the style of the Georgian period, and her two super-suites deluxe, one of which has the bedroom gorgeously decorated in Chinese style while the sitting room is purely Japanese.’
It seems certain that Doug and Mary would have stayed in one of these ‘super-suite deluxe’ cabins.
The Asama Maru’s inaugural visit to America was no doubt overshadowed by coinciding news of the Wall Street Crash. Nevertheless, a ‘public reception’ held at San Pedro on the afternoon of 31st October evidently attracted 15,000 visitors to the ship, and a banquet was held aboard for several hundred specially-invited guests. Representatives of the Dollar Line, the company whose large fleet of ‘President’ liners then dominated the transpacific passenger trade, must have read in some alarm of the arrival of this ‘vanguard of a great motor-driven fleet by which Japan hopes to convert the highways of the ocean into her own marts of trade.’ Two sister ships, Tatsuta Maru and Chichibu Maru, would enter service the following year, along with three smaller liners of the Hikawa Maru Class serving routes to Vancouver and Seattle.
The Asama Maru began regular scheduled sailings between Yokohama, San Francisco, and Hong Kong, and on only her fourth voyage, broke the record for a motor-ship crossing between the former Japanese and American ports, a feat proudly promoted by her Swiss engine makers. However, it wasn’t long before this agent of commerce, whose hull had grown alongside that of the heavy cruiser Haguro during her construction at Nagasaki, became an agent in Japan’s growing militarism. In the spring of 1932, she made an unscheduled stop at her home port to embark more than 4,000 Japanese refuges returning to Shanghai after the recent troubles there, precipitated by the Japanese military invasion of Manchuria. This was a foretaste of the kind of voyages she would undertake later in her career.
The 46 scheduled round-trips the Asama Maru completed between the years 1929-37 were largely uneventful. In August 1932, she embarked Japanese athletes returning from the Los Angeles Olympics. These included individual equestrian gold medallist Takeichi Nishi, who would later serve as commander of a tank regiment on Iwo Jima. Japan had also won all but one of the men’s swimming events. However, a serious incident occurred the following year when a consignment of opium and other illicit drugs was discovered aboard ship. This $250,000 narcotics haul, found concealed in oil drums, was eventually traced to the activities of Juda and Isaac Ezra, sons of the once powerful Shanghai businessman Edward Ezra.[1] For their involvement in this smuggling operation, and eight previous shipments made aboard the Asama Maru and her sister-ships, the twin brothers were each fined $12,000 and given 12-year jail sentences.
Among the many VIPs to travel aboard the Asama Maru during this period was the deaf-blind authoress and social worker Helen Keller. Keller embarked for Japan on 1st April 1937, accompanied by her secretary Polly Thomson and representatives of the New York Methodist Church. During the voyage Keller dined in the private cabin of the vessel’s then commander Captain B. Kaneko. In travelling to Japan, Keller was fulfilling a promise made to her teacher Ann Sullivan, who had died the previous year. Although primarily a mission of mercy to offer moral support to the country’s estimated 170,000 deaf-blind citizens, Keller’s trip was also diplomatic in tone. She arrived in Tokyo carrying a letter of goodwill from President Franklin G. Roosevelt, and was welcomed by members of the Japanese government and the royal family. During her four-month stay, Keller gave speeches in 20 cities including in Korea and Manchuria, and received the gift of an Akita dog, prophetically named ‘Kamikaze’.
Bow Creek to Anatahan 