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Remembering the ‘Indian Titanic’ that was sunk by the Japanese

In November 1942, SS Tilawa was on its way to Mombasa when it was torpedoed by the Imperial Japanese Navy’s I-29 submarine, claiming 280 lives. On November 27, 1942, HMS Birmingham arrived in Bombay’s Ballard Pier, bringing 678 grateful people to India. They were traumatised and exhausted after surviving a horrific tragedy in the Indian Ocean that had claimed the lives of 280 innocents and nearly killed them too.