Lisbon Maru: How one British daughter's quest reached President Xi

The sinking of the Lisbon Maru was one of the most harrowing events of World War II. 

The Japanese ship was off the coast of China, transporting more than 1,800 British prisoners of war (POWs) from Hong Kong to Japan in October 1942 when it was torpedoed by an American submarine. 

As the ship went down, the Japanese guards on board locked the POWs below deck by battening the hatches. Realizing the ship was sinking, the prisoners managed to break through onto the deck. 

Overpowering the remaining guards, some prisoners managed to jump into the sea – where they faced fire from other Japanese troops. Many were shot, and many drowned; over 800 people would lose their lives in the tragedy.

But in the chaos, hundreds survived, thanks to the bravery of Chinese fishermen from nearby islands. Seeing the smoke of the sinking ship, they rowed towards it, pulling 384 men from the water. Their presence forced the Japanese to stop shooting, saving many other lives.

One of the survivors was Dennis Morley, a young soldier in the Royal Scots Regiment.

His daughter, Denise Wynne, knew nothing about the event until her father was visited at their UK home by the Chinese film director and producer Fang Li. 

Li had put a full-page advertisement in UK newspapers to try and find survivors and their families for his documentary, The Sinking of the Lisbon Maru.

"My father was one of the last ones (to escape)," says Wynne. "He was in one of the lower holds. A lot of them were jumping into the sea, and there were Japanese ships shooting machine guns into the water and killing the prisoners of war."

Morley lived to be 101. He dreamed of memorializing the fishermen, whom he credited with saving him and hundreds of other POWs.

"He said they were heroes, they were like angels appearing," Wynne says. "Many of the British prisoners of war escaped death because of them."

Six months before he died in January 2021, Morley told his daughter it was his dream that a memorial should one day be built in Zhoushan in China, honoring the bravery of the fishermen.

After his death, Wynne decided to write to Chinese President Xi Jinping. She received help from a family friend in Hong Kong, who offered to deliver the letter in May 2021.

She says she was shocked when, in September that year, the Chinese Embassy wrote her an email to say the Chinese ambassador to the UK would like to deliver a personal reply from President Xi.

"I couldn't imagine he had written back to me," she says.

In his letter, President Xi described the fishermen's actions as "an important testimony to the UK and China fighting shoulder to shoulder."

President Xi also said he would directly look into the practicalities of building the memorial with the appropriate people.

When the new memorial was unveiled on Donji Island in Zhoushan, in May 2025, near the site of the sinking, Denise Wynne was there, alongside other relatives of British POWs and descendants of the fishermen.

"I was absolutely overwhelmed and proud that I made my dad's wishes come true," she says.

Today, two memorials to the sinking of the Lisbon Maru stand thousands of miles apart: one on China's east coast, the other at the UK's National Memorial Arboretum in Staffordshire. 

Together they tell a shared story of sacrifice, survival and friendship across nations, ensuring the stories of those involved will not be forgotten.