Ashio POW Camp
SS-44 details

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Source: Kevin Don Hutchison's book "World War II in the North Pacific, Chronology and Fact Book," Greenwood Press, Westport CT, 1994:

Submarine SS-44: Captured 7 October 1943

"By radar contact, Lt Comdr Francis Brown mistook a Japanese submarine destroyer for a maru. Making a surface attack with the deck gun, their fire was immediately returned. Struck below the water line in the control room, and two other places, the order was given to abandoned ship. Eight men made it into the water, only William F. Whitemore and Ernest A. Duva rescued.

"Taken to Paramushiru (probably Kurabu Zaki), they were "questioned" at the Naval Interrogation Camp at Ofuna for a year. They were then forced to work in the copper mines of Ashio until the end of the war."
Original document (PDF)