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is a Japanese ocean liner that Yokohama Dock Company built for ''Nippon Yūsen Kabushiki Kaisha'' ("NYK Line"). She was launched on 30 September 1929 and made her maiden voyage from Kobe to Seattle on 13 May 1930.〔 She is permanently berthed as a museum ship at Yamashita Park, Naka-ku, Yokohama. Hikawa Maru was one of three motor ships,〔 all named after major Shinto shrines. The Hikawa Shrine is in Saitama in central Honshu. Her two sister ships, both lost in the Second World War, were ''Heian Maru'' and ''Hie Maru''.〔 ==Civilian service== ''Hikawa Maru'' and her sisters ran a regular liner route between Yokohama, Vancouver and Seattle.〔 She had a reputation for service that combined splendid food and beautiful art deco interiors, and she was nicknamed "The Queen of the Pacific". Charlie Chaplin travelled on her for part of the round the World tour that he made in 1932.〔 Kanō Jigorō, the founder of Judo and Japan's representative on the International Olympic Committee, died traveling on her in 1938. In 1940–41, before Japan's entry to the Second World War, hundreds of Jewish refugees from Nazi persecution fled to Canada and the USA ''via'' Japan, and many of them sailed on ''Hikawa Maru''.〔 In August 1940 a party of 82 German and Lithuanian Jews who had travelled ''via'' the USSR and Vladivostok reached Seattle on ''Hikawa Maru''. Later, Rabbi Zerach Warhaftig and his family travelled east from Lithuania to Japan. They left Yokohama on ''Hikawa Maru'' on 5 June 1941 and landed in Vancouver, Canada on 17 June.〔 He described the trip as "a summer vacation and with the war seeming to be so far away" although, he said "I didn't have a peaceful mind because of the strong responsibility I had to help the Jewish refugees with the troubles they faced."〔 In July 1941 the USA and other countries retaliated against Japan's invasion of French Indochina by ordering the seizure of Japanese assets. However, the USA gave assurances that the liners would not be seized so ''Heian Maru'' and ''Hikawa Maru'' continued their regular service to US ports.〔 In October 1941 ''Hikawa Maru'' became the last NYK ship to visit a US port before the Second World War broke out.〔 She brought US refugees to Seattle, and on her return voyage she repatriated 400 Japanese nationals.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Hikawa Maru」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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