The first ship that came anywhere close to the survivors in the water came at night. It was too dark for the survivors to make out the shape of the ship, but they threw caution to the wind and began shouting, until the boat came closer and they suddenly realized it was a Japanese ship, searching for their own survivors. The ship passed quietly by the Americans, who were praying softly in the water.
That first night, Robert Billie of the Johnston, who’d been wounded, was tied to an unwounded shipmate who held his face above the water. That kept him alive.
On the second morning in the ocean, the skipper of the Johnston, Bob Copeland, instructed the forty or so men who were clinging to one life raft to come up one by one and receive their morning’s rations: three malted milk tablets. Self wants to cry.
Kanlaon 