ADRIFT FOR 130 DAYS

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 99, 17 December 1943, Page 4

ADRIFT FOR 130 DAYS

LONE SEAMAN'S TRIAL

A Chinese mess steward, survivor of one of the severest trials of human endurance, described ihiow he used a bent nail for a fish hook to help Mm survive 131 days adrift pn a liferaft. Stoical Poon Lim recalled that he whiled away the hours while the tiny raft tossed on the waves of the South Atlantic by singing folk songs from his native Hainan' Island.

It was oh the morning of November 23, 1942, that a submarine torpedoed the British merchantman on which Poon Lim was serving as second steward.- One hundred' and thirty-one days later, on April 3, he was picked up off the coast of Brazil by the crewmen of a small fishing vessel. Poon Lim, washed overboard as he raced to a lifeboat, swam Until he sighted an unoccupied liferaftr and climbed aboard. The raft's food and water stores, meant to sustain several men for a short period, were intact. "The food lasted for 55 days," Poon Lim related through an interpreter. "The water held out for 65 days." After his provisions were gone, Poon Lim' extracted a nail from the raft, bent it and used it for a fishhook. He unravelled rope and fashioned a fishing line. Parts of biscuit and the bright coil spring from a flashlight provided bait for small fish, which he then used to lure bigger fish. Frequent rainfall provided water, which he caught in a canvas and kept in the raft's container. Toward the end of his ordeal, blackbirds roosted on the raft at night and he caught them for additional food and bait. Finally Poon Lim was rescued by a fishing vessel.

Every effort in life teaches us something, .and this accumulated gain is what makes the big man out of the little man.—rGeorge Mit* thew Adams. * "'" "" '■"'"A ,