5 CHAPTER ONE ATTACK AND RESCUE Now docked in San Francisco Bay the Pampanito took part in a dramatic rescue mission during World War II Fifteen British and Australian soldiers clung to a makeshift raft bobbing in the South China Sea The men had no food or freshwater They also had no shelter from the sun and saltwater There was little chance of rescue It was September 14 1944 Three days earlier three US submarines had destroyed a convoy of Japanese ships and an oil tanker It was the height of
The Bridge on the River Kwai The 2,200 POWs aboard the Japanese merchant ships had survived the building of the bridge over the River Kwai They were used as slave labor and treated terribly The bridge was part of the Railway of Death that connected Bangkok Thailand and Rangoon Burma More than 100,000 men died during construction Some died from starvation and tropical diseases Others were overworked or beaten to death 6 World War II 1939 1945 The United States and its allies including the United Kingdom and Australia needed to stop Japan at any cost Their strategy included attacking ships that carried supplies such as fuel food and weapons The USS Pampanito and USS Sealion sank two Japanese merchant ships But the US sailors didn’t realize what kind of cargo the ships were carrying On the ships were 2,200 prisoners of war POWs from the United Kingdom and Australia Those 15 men on the raft were among the survivors
To u r i s t s c a n n o w v i s i t t h e b r i d g e b u i l t b y B r i t i s h a n d Australian POWs over the River Kwai A Brutal Captivity The 2,200 POWs had been captives for three years They spent 16 months in forced labor building a bridge in Southeast Asia They barely made it out alive Now they were being shipped to Japan to work in copper mines As they floated through the wreckage they wondered if it would be worse to die on the open ocean or be worked to death by the Japanese Some of the prisoners had already decided they didn’t want to wait to find out They threw themselves into the sea and drowned After three days at sea the POWs spotted something in the water Thirst and exhaustion had 7
