It was reported that even a full-bodied bulk carrier in the fully laden condition suffered serious bottom slamming in an unhappy superposition of swells and waves and that buckling of the upper deck of the bow was caused by the subsequent whipping of the hull. Damage analysis of such a disaster requires the accurate estimation of internal force distribution in the fore part of a hull and also of nonlinear impact force due to slamming. In the present paper the finite element method is proposed for the structural response of ship hulls in rough seas, which considers shear deformation and higher frequency vibration than 2 nodes and 3 nodes modes. The appropriate added mass and wave damping coefficients for ship hull motion and impact force are obtained by the Close-Fit method in this procedure. Good correlation is observed between the present calculated results and the experimental ones.