Some of you may not have seen these

[Laufen zum Ziel]

WW II POW Rescue Video from USS Pampanito and USS Sealion:
During September of 1944, submarines USS Growler, USS Pampanito and USS Sealion attacked a Japanese convoy. Unknown to the Allies, there were over two thousand British and Australian prisoners of war aboard these ships. These were the survivors of the fall of Singapore and forced labor on the Burma-Thailand railroad ("Railway of Death"). Four days after the attack Pampanito returned to the area and found and rescued 73 of the prisoners of war. Sealion was alerted and returned to rescue 54 men. Both boats had 16 mm periscope cameras that they used to film some of the rescue. The un-edited clips below are now in the US National Archives. Sealion RG 428-NPC-5864, RG 428-NPC-5865. Pampanito RG 428-NPC-5743. Note that film clips appear in the order they were pieced together by the Navy and are now in the archives, not in the order in which events occurred. So for example, the film clips of the survivors being delivered in Saipan appear before the rescue.


http://www.hnsa.org/sound/rescuevideo/sealionvideo.htm
http://www.hnsa.org/sound/rescuevideo/pampvideo.htm

[She-Wolf]

Laufen, I have to ask - what happened to all the other POW's? Was that the Japanese POW boat lying off to one side of the sub? Were these 130 - odd men the only ones that survived?

[Laufen zum Ziel]

Sadly I believe they were the only survivors. The
convoy was sunk 3 days prior to the rescue.

[She-Wolf]

oh, that is so sad...:cry:

I found a site that goes into a bit of detail. About a thousand men were lost to the sea or the effects of being in the sea for four days, and four died subsequent to their rescue. When the torps struck they did not kill any of the POW's with the explosion.

The Japanese 'rescued' some of the POW's and these men continued their journey aboard the Kibitsu Maru ( I wonder if they survived the war)

http://www.roll-of-honour.org.uk/Hell_Ships/Rakuyo_Maru/html/history.htm