Akibasan Maru was a Japanese cargo ship. The movement record at combinedfleet.com says Mitsui Bussan laid her down at Tama on 11 March 1924 as a 4,670-ton cargo ship, launched her on 10 September 1924 and completed her on 18 November 1924. Her wartime register figure was 4,603 tons. She traded to India, the Philippines and North America before the war, and the Navy requisitioned her in November 1941 as an auxiliary transport. This is not her sister Akagisan Maru.
She took part in the Port Moresby invasion force in May 1942, in the convoy that sailed for the Coral Sea. She reached Kwajalein from Truk on 16 January 1944 with materials and 160 reinforcement soldiers, unloaded, and was at the atoll when the pre-invasion strikes began. On 30 January 1944, at dawn, aircraft from the carriers Enterprise, Yorktown, Bunker Hill and Belleau Wood bombed the atoll. Combinedfleet.com says she took direct hits in her No. 5 and No. 6 holds, raised her stern and sank in about 15 minutes at 9-24 N, 157-45 E, with 53 of her crew killed. Some accounts say 31 January and planes from Bunker Hill. A U.S. record of that day's bombardment credits the destroyer Burns, and combinedfleet.com notes that she was sunk by either aircraft or that destroyer. No single plane or ship is credited with the kill.
She was removed from the Navy List on 10 March 1944.