‘HELLSHIP’

The Brazil Maru, which in Karen Yamashita’s well-crafted novel of the same name (Oct. 11) ferried Japanese immigrants to Brazil, was the same Brazil Maru that brought Japanese families in Taiwan back to their homeland toward the end of World War II.

It earned the epithet “hellship” in 1945 while ferrying starved American POWs from the Philippines to Japan to work in Japan’s mines. A great many POWs died on that journey--my father was one of them.

I understand that the Brazil Maru was sunk toward the war’s end. Paralleling the life of Kantaro, the novel’s protagonist, the ship went from a beginning of much promise to an end of sad disappointment.

FRANCES E. CAHILL

LONG BEACH