Diving the Shotan Maru
The Shotan Maru is a deep wreck. She was quite a youngster when she went down, as she was a "wartime standard" freighter. The Standard 1D type of ship was the Japanese version of the US "Liberty Ship", a mass produced freight carrier designed to be built quickly. The Japanese shipyards couldn't manufacture them fast enough to keep up with their attrition, however, and US submarines put them on the bottom faster then they could come down the ways. Its unlikely that the Shotan was over a year old when she got caught at Truk.
She went down in the deepwater anchorage of the Fourth Fleet, just west of Fanamu Island. She's pointed directly at Fanamu and since both her anchors are up and stowed, she was probably underway when she sunk, heading toward the island to run aground before she sunk. A ship aground can be repaired easire than one on the bottom. Depths are in the neighborhood of 160fsw and bottom time is limited because of that. As luck would have it, however, she's not a large wreck so bottom time limitations aren't as bad as they are on a large wreck like the San Francisco Maru. A small wreck is easier to cover in a short dive.
The Shotan is a 2,000 ton, coal burning steam ship with a length of about 300 feet at the waterline. Coal was easy for Japan to get during the war, when compared to oil, because there were coal mines much closer than the oil fields of the Netherlands East Indes. US submarines could follow a Japanese convoy from a distance by watching the smoke and await nightfall, then get in position to pick off the ships in the dark.
There are three trucks on the wreck, but the bodywork has rusted away so they're not as interesting as the ones on the Hoki Maru. In the after holds there are quite a few four-packs of 75mm artillery shells. She has no bow gun. At the stern there's a 75mm gun mounted, and there's an auxiliary steering station on the poopdeck, too. Since the superstructure was afire before the Shotan sank, and she seems to have been underway, the auxiliary steering station must have been useful.
Click on the thumbnails to view enlargements
A narrow passageway outboard of the superstructure
Click Here to Swim Back to Truk
Click here to Go Home