Descendants of nine victims who died in the sinking of Lisbon Maru in 1942 scatter flowers at the site of the incident in memory of the victims on Oct 20 in Zhoushan. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

A total of 14 foreigners from the United Kingdom attended a memorial ceremony on Oct 20 in Zhoushan, East China's Zhejiang province.

The ceremony was held in memory of nine prisoners of war (POW) who died in the sinking of Japanese cargo ship Lisbon Maru 77 years ago during World War II.

The ship, which was built in 1920, was torpedoed by The Grouper, a US Navy submarine, and sank in the ocean about 3 nautical miles from Dongji Island on Oct 1, 1942.

The foreign guests are all descendants of the nine POWs. They set out from London on Oct 18 and arrived in Zhoushan on Oct 19.

A woman pays her respects to those who died in the sinking of Lisbon Maru at the memorial ceremony on Oct 20 in Zhoushan. [Photo/zjol.com.cn]

They were invited to the memorial ceremony by Fang Li, a famous film producer in China and the president of Laurel Films Co.

In July 2018, Fang published advertisements in three major newspapers in the UK– The Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Guardian – to look for relatives of victims who died in the sinking of Lisbon Maru.

Fang has been working on a documentary about the sinking of the ship since 2016, which has cost over 10 million yuan ($1.4 million) so far. He said that the documentary is expected to be released in 2020, the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II.

Lin A'gen, a 95-year-old local fisherman who saved several lives during the rescue operation for the ship, was also invited to the ceremony.

Lin gave a brief description of the rescue operation. He said that he and other fishermen rushed to the ship voluntarily as soon as they saw it was sinking.

According to Lin, they tried their best and saved 384 POWs in total, but unfortunately another 828 POWs still died at sea.