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Summary
The incredible stories of twenty-two lone survivors of maritime
disasters are presented in this collection of war and peacetime incidents. The
dramatic accounts-including those of a British sailor who survived 133 days at
sea on a open raft and a German sailor who spent 28 hour in the ocean without
a life preserver-are based on a wide array of sources, including interviews with
the survivors and their families and official records to back up their accuracy.
Most took place in World War II, when the navies and merchant fleets of many nations
roamed the seas. Each story is one of boundless courage, a tenacious will to survive,
and, in many cases, good luck.
The voices of children reached him from high above. They were
calling to him with high pitched voices, "Stick it, mister! Stick it mister!"
In a last, desperate effort he had wrapped a sudden found rope around himself
and felt his body being pulled through a crashing surf. He was unconscious when
his exhausted body reached the shore at Lizard Point some 60 miles south of Plymouth,
England. Second officer Richard H. Ayres had survived after thirteen days at sea
fighting frigid gales and rolling seas in a lifeboat that once held 32 survivors
of the British merchant ship Gairsoppa. U-101 under the command of Kapitanluetnant
Ernst Mengersen, holder of the Knight's Cross, sent the Gairsoppa to the bottom
200 miles southwest of Galway, Ireland February 17, 1941. Second Officer Ayres
was the only survivor of the ill fated ship.
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