But he decided to make a last desperate
attempt to get the men out of Java. He asked each of them if he
wished to take the chance, and every one agreed.
He first had to get the twelve men to the sea coast--fifty miles
away. To do this, he had to improvise stretchers for the hazardous
journey. The men were suffering severely, but Dr. Wassell kept them
alive by his skill, and inspired them by his own courage.
And as the official report said, Dr. Wassell was "almost like a
Christ-like shepherd devoted to his flock."
On the sea coast, he embarked the men on a little Dutch ship. They
were bombed, they were machine-gunned by waves of Japanese planes.
Dr. Wassell took virtual command of the ship, and by great skill
avoided destruction, hiding in little bays and little inlets.
A few days later, Dr. Wassell and his small flock of wounded men
reached Australia safely.
And today Dr. Wassell wears the Navy Cross.
Another story concerns a ship, a ship rather than an individual
man.
You may remember the tragic sinking of the submarine, the U.S.S.
SQUALUS off the New England coast in the summer of 1939. Some of
the crew were lost, but others were saved by the speed and the
efficiency of the surface rescue crews. The SQUALUS itself was
tediously raised from the bottom of the sea.
She was repaired and put back into commission, and eventually she
sailed again under a new name, the U.
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