大象传媒

During the darkest days of WWII, thousands of sailors on convoy duty were forced to abandon ships that had been mortally wounded by enemy action. Quite often raging fires or the danger of being dragged down with the ship left sailors with no option but to jump into the unforgiving sea and swim for their lives. The tragedy is many mariners survived the sinking, only to die later on the very point of rescue.

The scene was repeated time and time again on the north Atlantic routes. Miserable injured, burnt, oil drenched, choking, seamen would cling desperately to flotsam and useless rafts whilst bobbing and struggling amongst their dead comrades.

Imagine the feeble cheering, voices gathering, as a destroyer separated itself from the horizon and sprinted to their rescue. Now full throttle, billowing plumes of angry black smoke from lean funnels.

Thankful rallying of the spirits 鈥淣ot long now lads, hold on, for God鈥檚 sake hold on. Just a few minutes more.鈥�

The sleek greyhound of the sea would heave too, offering meagre but welcome steel walled shelter from chilling wind. A small arc of inviting calm.

Officer on deck barking orders 鈥淭hrow over the nets, quickly does it. Medical orderlies stand by to receive survivors.鈥�

The poor, grim faced victims would wallow and feebly splash their way towards their rescuers who were shouting down to them from the grey steel deck. Race creed, nationality didn鈥檛 matter here. Such things irrelevant, superfluous! This was a desperate call on primeval instinct.

Finding from somewhere, somehow, last reserves of energy to finally grasp the rope and slowly climb, gripping for dear life with their cadaverous, numb, stiff white fingers. Doggedly, hand over hand, ever upwards, nearing safety, pausing. Now moving again towards warmth, soup, and a chance of survival.

But it wasn鈥檛 the cold North Atlantic wind, the sodden uniforms, oil or old age that killed them. Icy water having quickly neutralised leg muscle tone, the only things sustaining blood pressure were compression of the surrounding sea and their pounding hearts.

So as each man struggled clear of the water, blood started pooling in the saggy, useless, blood vessels of his legs. A slow but inexorable process of oxygen starvation. A biological fuse to sudden death. And all too often, just as he made that final, life craving, lunge to touch the waiting fingers, he would falter, eyes glazing, suddenly dizzy, brain deprived of blood.
Then tumbling helplessly.
Now just a ragged unconscious bundle vanishing in the foam.
Murdered casually, not by hostile force but his own body.

A cruel sea indeed!
And a needless loss.

In fact it was a German naval officer, tired of the killing, who discovered lives could be saved by raising victims of immersion horizontally on planks.

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