Koko Kaiun Yuso Kaisha (KoKaYu Line)

Toumachi Maru class:

The late 1910s and early 1920s saw Koko's economic growth progressing completely unimpeded. WWI, had only marginally affected the nation, and the same could had easily been said for Koko Kaiun Yuso Kaisha. Contrary to European shipping lines, who saw their ships being lost left and right, KoKaYu saw her passenger fleet grow by 40%, with new routes to San Francisco and Seattle added among others. In particular, the Toumachi-San Francisco crossing, with a stopover in Honolulu, immediately showed demand and potential for growth and profit. Such potential was further confirmed when KoKaYu flagship liners, Chiyoko and Yamada Maru where moved on the route during winter months, filling cabins with ease. So in 1921 design started on a new pair of liners to expand the US-bound transpacific service.
The task was a challenge from the start. The two new ships would have to offer similar, if not superior standards of luxury and public spaces to those of Chiyoko and Yamada Maru, as to not disappoint their potential new customers. Plus, The Inaharas -owners of KoKaYu- were adamant in requesting the two sisters being able to sustain speeds comparable to that of Blue-Riband holder RMS Mauretania (26 knots). Their reasoning was that such speed would allow to cut travel time (not counting the stopover in Honolulu) from 6 days and 9 hours of the current liners to 4 days and 23 hours. Almost a 25% reduction. Such gap would have easily shattered competition and made passengers flock to the new luxurious Kokoan liners instead of the slower, much more common, ships crossing the Pacific. Design was completed by late 1922. As requested, the final design was daring, mandating a modification of the massive dryodock and slipway at Yamatogawa Shipyards, both of which were lengthened by 10 meters.

The first ship, Toumachi Maru, was officially laid down in February 1923 and despite the gargantuan building task, by October 1925 she was towering between the scaffolding ready to be launched. The massive hull was a sight to behold: with an overall length of 305,7 meters she was the first ocean liner in the world to break the symbolic treshold of 1.000-feet in length, as well as the 300-meter mark. The ship featured a relative slim beam of 31,1 m and a full load draft of 10,8m. Overall her tonnage amounted to 55.968 GRT, a mere 583 less than world's largest, White Star Line RMS Majestic. Despite such small figures would have meant a simple last-time modification be enough to claim the title, the Inaharas and KoKaYu seemed to give more importance to length instead of tonnage. As it had been done with Chiyoko and Yamada Maru before, Toumachi Maru's launch was highly publicized even if for a simple matter of nationalistic pride: the emerging Asian-Pacific island nation was now firmly capable of building ocean liners that could easily rival with those of the European powerhouses. Overall, Toumachi Maru was registered with a total allowance for 2.099 passengers: 761 in first class, 679 in second class and 659 in third. Plus a standard crew of 1.162 for a grand total of 3.261 if fully booked and staffed. For safety reason, 24 motor lifeboats were carried in total: twenty-two 38.5ft/11.7m ones, each with seats for 150, plus two 39.5ft/12m motor lifeboats with wireless and 135 seats for a total capacity of 3.570 persons.
There were not just silver linings however, the engines needed quite some teething to achieve the proper layout and power necessary to achive the required speed for the massive ship, which also caused fitting out to lag repeatedly. Ultimately Toumachi Maru was fitted with thirty-four double-ended boilers split in four boiler rooms (seven in boiler room 1 and nine each in rooms 2,3 and 4) that discharged through the two forward funnels, the third being a dummy housing all the ventilation shafts for the engine rooms. All the steam generated powered four military-grade steam turbines with a 119.000shp output, split in two compartments, that drove four massive four-bladed propellers. On trials, in april 1928, she easily made 26,3knots and barely exceeded 27 under forced draft, Much for the satisfaction of her owners, the big ship had managed to make news again.
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Toumachi Maru Finally sailed for her maiden voyage five-and-a-half years after her construction had started, departing Toumachi for Honolulu, and then San Francisco, on August 8th 1928. She arrived at the Hawaiian port on the 11th, departed the next day and reached San Francisco on the 14th. The huge liner attracted flocks of onlookers on both ports. Despite she needed tenders to embark and disembark passengers in Honolulu, and being able to dock only at Pier27 in San Francisco due to her size, the liner proved to be a smashing success, only waiting for her running mate to join her once completed. However, the 1929 Wall Street crash had significantly reduced passenger travel demands through the Pacific by September of 1930. By the second half of 1932 the ship was often traveling with more crew than passengers. There were some hopes for things to improve in 1933 as Koko had completely emerged from the depression by that point, but in addition to US numbers still struggling, the November 1933 coup d'etat that led Morimoto to gain power in Koko didn't help in the matters. In the end KoKaYu caved and, starting with the 1934 season, moved Toumachi Maru to the Toumachi-Tokyo route. Here the liner finally returned to steadily generate profits for the company once again.
The three stacker routine life continued until December 1941 when the Pacific War broke out. Given its massive size and speed the Navy was swift in requisitioning the liner for wartime duties. Stripped of all her fittings, Toumachi Maru was converted into a troopship. Four 140mm guns were fitted, two forward and two aft, plus eight triple 25mm anti-air machine guns, searchlights, RDF equipments, a degaussing cable and a new coat of gray paint. The old standard mechanic davits were replaced with more modern gravity types and the ship recieved a total of fifty lifeboats of all sizes, two motor launches, two motor boats and sixteen landing crafts. Such fitted she was capable of carrying over 8.000 troops plus 850 crew.
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It was however not lost to anyone that the massive liner presented itself as a primary target for American and Allied forces. Koko no Kaigun carefully avoided sending the ship anywhere it was remotely possible an enemy aricraft could appear. When it came to enemy subarines, traveling at speed was always the primary defence. This indeed saved her a couple of times when US submarines spotted the massive vessel but were unable to get into a firing position due to the ship's speed. Toumachi Maru kept ferrying thousand and thousands of troops, especially towards Truk, -with smaller vessels delivering them to the Solomon Islands theatre- for almost three years, but at that point fortunes of war for the Japanese and Kokoans were turning for worse. Numerous setbacks and defeats were suffered between august and september 1944, culminating with the worst naval defeat yet suffered by Koko no Kaigun at Midway and the shocking loss of the battleship Yashima, torpedoed by the USS Archerfish just south of Koko home waters.
Ever since the requitision of most of its fleet at the start of the war, Koko Kayun Yuso Kaisha had always tried to lobby for their flagship liners to be kept out of harm's way and the recent miliary setbacks and defeats gave them renewed and strengthed motivations to pursue their goal. This, coupled with a shift to more conservative miliary tactics by Koko no Kaigun, resulted in KoKaYu finally succeding in their task. In October 1944 Toumachi Maru returned at Yamatogawa Shipyards to start her conversion into an hospital ship. During works, all weapons and military equipment were removed while thousands of medical beds and several operating rooms were installed. The common areas of the upper decks were transformed into rooms for the wounded. Forward first class cabins were used to house doctors. The first class dining room and first class reception room were transformed into operating rooms. Other than 3.900 patients the ship could have carried 600 medical personnel and a crew of 850. The ship also recieved her original complement of 24 lifeboats, with the addition of thirty-two more (four 150-seaters, fourteen 70-seaters and fourteen 65-seaters) for a total capacity of 6.060 people. Protected by her white green and red paintscheme, Toumachi Maru ferried the wounded back home until the start of Koko uprisings in november 1945.
Toumachi Maru spent three months berthed in Toumachi harbor and not sailing, as a sort of power struggle ensued between the loyalists -eager to utilize the ship to covertly move troops around behind the safety of her markings- and the Inahara family, who were still attempting to save their precious liners. Things took a downward turn on February 22nd 1946: Clashes were happening on the streets as Rebel forces were on the brink of overthrowing Loyalist ones from the capital. Frantically preparing to escape the city and seek shelter northward in Fuyuki for a sort of supposed grandiose last stand, Morimoto acted to sabotage the rebels as best as he could. The target ship Haki had already been scuttled in one of the three harbord channels on the 17th, so Morimoto -unfazed by the potential war crime- dictated Toumachi Maru and her sister to be scuttled in the other channels in order to completely block all access to the inner bay, all dock facilities and, Koko's two largest shipyards and naval facilities (Toumachi Naval Arsenal and Yamatogawa Shipyards). Getting wind of this after noticing unusual Loyalist troop movements towards the harbor, a few divisions of Rebel forces rushed in and managed to twarth the plan. Toumachi Maru was succesfully boarded before her mooring lines were cut and the Loyalists were dealt with. The liner suffered minor damage and, with the Loyalists leaving the city, was left safely docked until the Armistice in March 1946. She served again as an hospital ship, tending boh civilian and military wounded until 1947 without leaving the harbor.
Despite having succeeding in saving her, KoKaYu had no chance of operating the liner again in the postwar years. Under the peace treaty agreements, she was assigned as a war reparation to the US Government. Shortly thereafter, representatives of the United Sates Lines inspected the vessel to survey her condition before the takeover happened. Toumachi Maru left for the US in late January of 1948. After some minor maintenance in Los Angeles she crossed the Panama Canal -where she barely fitted trough the locks due to her length- before reaching Newport News for more thorugh repairs and conversion back to civilian service. During works her funnels were raised by 1,2m -as maintenance due to some minor corrosion issues was deemed necessary anyway- and given horizontal fins to improve smoke deflection like on the SS America, most of the open promenade spaces were enclosed in glass, an open air pool added aft and a small radar mast fitted above the bridge.
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Renamed Liberty, she began Transatlantic service between New York, Le Havre and Southampton starting with the 1949 season. Initialy the running mate of the aforementioned SS America, she was joined in 1952 by the slightly smaller but much faster SS United States. Like all other transatlantic liners she enjoyed years of success, but the advent of jet aircrafts led to a significant decline of passengers numbers, so that she was finally retired in 1966 after 38 years of service. She was laid up in Newport News before being relocated to Norfolk in 1970 together with the SS United States, then trasferred from USL to the United States Maritime Administration until 1978 when she was put on sale.
In 1979 Norwegian Cruise briefly showed interest for the ship before backing down due to her age, opting for SS France instead. Hong Kong businessman Tung Chao-Yung also showed some interest for Toumachi Maru in a not so committed attempt to secure a replacement for Seawise University (former RMS Queen Elizabeth), which had burned down in Hong Kong back in 1972. In a weird twist, politics got involved. Despite Yung was a staunch Kuomintang supporter, the thought of having their long lost flagship liner ending up in Hong Kong -which was poised to return to the PRC some day as recent negotiations between China and the UK were proceeding- stirred up an uproar within Koko Kaiun Yuso Kaisha leadership as soon as they got wind of the fact. Koko's then in-house anti-comunist center-right government coalition was more than eager to give credit to KoKaYu complaints and go through diplomatic means in order to interfere. This stalled up negotiations and in the end the death of Yung in 1982 did put an end to the potential bid.
By that point however, Koko's Government and Koko Kaiyun Yuso Kaisha interference had stirred up enough commotion that they felt obliged -mostly to not lose face to the public- to go through and bring back the old liner home. In late 1983 toumachi Maru was offcially purchased by KoKaYu for $6 million (15% of the toal covered by a Government subsidy). 1984 saw the ship moved again to Newport News, where essential maintenance and refurbisment works were conducted. Back in Koko, KKYK reserved and refurbished one of its recently decommissioned piers in Toumachi harbor to recieve the liner. It was soon announced that Toumachi Maru would be repurposed as a floating hotel, restaurant, museum and public venue. The biggest challenge was now bringing the old liner all the way back from Norfolk to Koko, as she had not moved under her own power for eighteen years by that point. The ship had however been resonably maintained until 1978, so a joint team of Yamatogawa and Newport News Shipbuilding enginneers managed to reactivate six boilers and two turbines to work at low pressure, giving the ship some agency and not rely on tugs only. The voyage was long and carefully planned however, with multiple stops and great care for weather forecasts as to avoid troubles whenever possible.
Finally on July 17th 1985, after a six-moths long trip, Toumachi Maru returned to Koko for the first time in 37 years. Conversion works commenced shortly thereafter, her funnels were removed to allow for boiler rooms 1 to 3 to be converted into multipurpose public venue spaces, while boiler room 4 and the engine rooms were refurbished and preserved as they were. Restaurant spaces on D deck were expanded, with all all first class and some second class cabins refurbished as hotel rooms. The rest of the cabins where either gutted to allow for galleys and storage areas to be expanded or repurposed into museum spaces, accomodations for personnel and employees and office spaces. All propellers were removeed, with three stored and one placed on display on the fantail. Replicas of the original funnels were installed, housing and hiding most of the air conditioning units. In a weird mistake, the replicas were built according to the funnel dimensions as modified during USL service, so they are actually higher than they should. With works completed, the restaurant, museum and public spaces openied by early 1988, the hotel following the next year.
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Since her opening Toumachi Maru has proved to be a popular attraction, with the only long term closure being her 2009-2010 major drydocking and refurbishment. In 2023 she celebrated the 100th anniversary of her laying down, a witness of a bygone era.

Hoshiguma Maru, Toumachi Maru's sister and running mate, began construction at Yamatogawa in 1927 and was launched in 1928. It was initially planned to start construction in 1925 but the challenge of getting the powerplant right that caused various teething problems in Toumachi Maru's construction led to the decision to postpone the keel laying. In the end, this allowed the builder to fit her with larger and improved boilers, leading to a reduced number of installations. Hoshiguma Maru had twenty-four of them, all double-ended (six in each boiler room), and her turbines generated 120.000shp. Thanks to that she sustained 26,5knots on her builders trial and touched 27,3 when pushing her engines. Compared to Toumachi Maru she had a slightly different bridge design, enclosed third class promenade forward, gravity davits for her lifeboats and slightly expanded atriums for her first class grand staircases, which led to her tonnage be 56.538 GRT, just barely less than RMS Oceanic. Her accomodations were identical to those of Toumachi Maru, for a total of 2.099 passengers and a crew of 1.162.
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Hoshiguma Maru joined her sister Toumachi Maru on the Toumachi-Honolulu-San francisco route in early 1931, but the slump in passenger traffic caused by the great depression led her to be moved to the Toumachi-Tokyo service by fall of the same year. Joined again by Toumachi Maru in 1934 she kept sailing to and from Japan until December 1941, when Koko no Kaigun requisitioned her for conversion into a troopship. She had the same 8.000+ troop capacity, armament and fittings of her sister and served in this role until October 1944, when she as well was converted into an Hospital Ship, ferrying troops first and wounded later, succesfully losing submarines due to her speed and avoiding the other dangers of the war. She was docked in Toumachi Harbor at the start of Koko uprisings in november 1945 and remained berhed there for the next three months.
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Then, on February 22nd 1946, as the Loyalists were on the verge of fleeing the city of Toumachi, Morimoto ordered to scuttle the massive hospital ship -and her sister with it- in one of the harbor channels in order to block acess to it, making it essentually useless and unusable. When Rebel forces interveened to prevent it, Hoshiguma Maru had already cut most of her mooring lines, ready to get underway. Some men still managed to board the ship and a series of clashes between factions started. Shortly after, fire was reported on board on G deck near the switchboard and electical store rooms. The blaze soon grew out of control, spreading to the turbine, condensers, and dynamo compartments, leaving the ship completely without power. Hoshiguma Maru drifted and burned for five hours before hitting a breakwater, deploying a starboard list while fire gutted her upper works, before partly sinking sixteen hours later. A total of 124 men, between Loyalists and Rebels, perished in the inferno.
As the war ended, in September 1946, a mixed team of engineers from KoKaYu and the USN surveyed the burned hulk in what was pretty much just a formality and declared Hoshiguma Maru a total loss. Her wreck was scrapped in place between 1947 and 1949.

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