While it is hoped no one will ever need this information, this World War II era lecture on survival is a valuable reminder of what men and women in the military faced then, as well as now -- DWT Being the substance of a lecture delivered to pupils at R.N.A.S. Crail by Surgeon Lieutenant L. Willoughby, R.N.V.R. (with acknowledgements to many mentors, chiefly Surgeon Captain Macdonald Critchley, R.N.V.R.). Transcribed by Third Officer M. Kelham, W.R.N.S. Submitted and reprinted with the permission of the Willoughby family. I am not qualified to speak on the subject of how to abandon ship if such an "evolution" is necessary. But I have been struck in this war by the unnecessary loss of life which occurs in ships lifeboats, Carley floats and aircraft dinghies, as a direct result of sheer ignorance of how to behave when one is afloat having got away from a sinking wreck. One finds oneself safely in some floatation craft and the tendency is now to consider that all is well. However, the experience of most people who have been adrift this war is undoubtedly that the ordeal is now only really commencing. I would like to put forward a few points in the hope that they may be useful in saving life in the future. I don't want to lay down a drill - "do this, do that" - but I want to give several general principles so that whatever circumstances may arise you may, for yourselves, think out the right things to do and to them, and, more important, the wrong things to do and to avoid them. Food Take first of all the question of food. I want you to get rid of the lay idea that three meals a day are necessary to life. As a matter of fact, it is very hard to kill a person of starvation alone, and it would probably take several months to do it. Let us examine what evidence we have about starvation. First of all it is undoubtedly a fact that in the past, and even perhaps in present times, certain religious communities did take the Lenten fast extremely seriously and went for their forty days and forty nights without food of any kind. They were none the worse for it, in fact perhaps were fitter at the end. Next, take the case of Terence McSweeny, the Mayor of Cork in the Sinn Feinn Rebellion, who was imprisoned in Brixton Goal and went on a hunger strike. He died, I believe, on the seventy-second day of pneumonia. Again, towards the turn of the last century there was a craze in England for doing stupid stunts in the best American "pole-squatting" style, and on Clapham Common two Italians - one of them called Succi - earned their living for years by fasting in sealed glass boxes for long periods, the public giving them pennies. Succi was approached by a reputable psychologist who conducted a series of experiments on him, the most notable being a long period of starvation under test conditions. After thirty-two days of absolute starvation the information required by the psychologist was complete, and as Succi was demanding a high price for his services, there seemed to be no point in continuing the experiments further. During the fast, on the twelfth, fifteenth and twenty-third days, Succi undertook a heavy day's manual work and did it successfully and without much distress. I think this is sufficient evidence to show that for periods up to a month you need not worry at all about your food supply. You will get away all right without having anything to eat at all. But on the other hand, please note carefully that in all these cases quoted, adequate supplies of drinking water were available. Water Now, whereas we can go for periods of a month or more without any food to eat, it is probably a fact that about five days is the limit of life without drinking water. I, therefore, find that iron rations which consist of biscuit, chocolate and little or no drinking water are merely a mockery. I must say that in the last few months the Admiralty and the Board of Trade have taken this matter in hand and are producing a much saner ration for castaway marines than heretofore. To supply floatation craft with water in adequate quantity it is necessary to know the daily minimum water requirements of an individual. In spite of much research, this is not known as yet. It is no easy thing to find out and people will not volunteer to die of thirst, though perhaps it might be a very good thing for a few heroes to do so; such a sacrifice might do more for the nation than storming a few pill-boxes. So we must admit as a premise to all our arguments, that you will never have enough water for your needs when adrift. So the problem of survival (from this point of view) is essentially that of conservation of water, and a close study of how water is lost from the body will suggest the best regimen to adopt in this unfortunate state. Water is lost from the body in three ways. The greatest loss is probably via the lungs. We breathe in dry cool air and breathe out hot saturated air. This loss becomes at once obvious when we breathe on to a chilled window pane. Imagine this loss going on continuously day and night and you will see why the loss is so great. Though it is impossible entirely to stop this leak, it can at least be cut down to the irreducible minimum; and the method which suggests itself is to keep respiration down to the minimum, so the first thing to avoid is any EXCESS RESPIRATORY TRAVEL. Don't indulge in community singing, or unnecessary talk, chatter and laughter. Another thing that pushes respiratory travel up is work. Muscular energy is a form of internal combustion and the moment we increase it we have to increase both our oxygen intake and our carbon dioxide exit, which in turn involves greater ventilation of the lungs and a very much greater water loss. This suggests that we should assume, a regime of SILENCE AND REST. The next great water loss is from the skin. This water loss is not at all obvious until you step into anti-gas clothing when mysteriously large quantities of water shortly appear in the gum boots. This water is, of course, unevaporated sweat. Now we produce sweat as part of the cooling system of the body. To go back to the internal combustion analogy our skin is to the body what a radiator is to a car. However, we don't lose heat from the body by radiation but by evaporation. This cooling is a most accurately adjusted system which keeps the temperature of the body to within 1/2 degree F from the Equator to the Arctic, from the cradle to the grave, and any conditions that tend to send the temperature of the body up therefore results immediately in increased water loss. This again suggests that muscular energy should be kept down to a minimum. Also we see that sunbathing is thoroughly bad. You must know, if you indulge in sunbathing, that a terrific thirst can be worked up to which a couple pints of beer go nowhere towards assuaging, and you will have no two pints of water to drink if you are drift in a ship's lifeboat. In fact the other extreme is most necessary. However hot it is, DON'T ABANDON YOUR CLOTHES. You may feel nice and comfortable with your clothes off, but your comfort is bought by water stolen from the body. Here I should remark that in two boats from a certain ship (containing 50 persons each) in one only two people were lost - and in the other nearly a third of the company were lost. In the one where nearly everyone got through clothes were invariably worn. In the other boat this rule was not observed and both the boats were picked up at the same time. The third great water loss is, of course, through the kidneys and by the urine, and there is no way known of reducing this; though I shall return to the subject later. Salt Water I would like now to deal with the popular superstition that if you drink salt water you will go mad. This is quite true, though the onset of the madness is only part of the harried death through lack of water. Let us see what happens when we take a pint of so of salt water into he stomach. If you cast your mind back to school chemistry days, and consider the subject of osmosis, you will remember that when you have two solutions, one strong and one weak, separated by a semi-permeable membrane, the more dilute solution will travel with considerable force to the more concentrated solution thus tending to equalize the concentrations. Now, the stomach wall is a semi-permeable membrane. The concentration of salt in sea water varies from 4% to 9% geographically. The solution of salt in the body fluids is 0.9%. So our pint of water in the stomach becomes diluted with at least nine pints of water stolen from the body, this raises pressure in the stomach until the whole ten pints is vomited. So far from increasing the water content of the body by this practice we lose up to 1,000%. Another popular superstition, unfortunately and disgracefully started by a doctor in the last war, is that water introduced as an enema in the rectum will keep you going. This is a fallacy. Exactly the same process obtains as when water is swallowed. In fact, this process of introducing saline into the rectum and having them come back with increased volume (in the form of diarrhea) is the method used in hospital for dehydrating the body in certain cases of head injuries. Another note of warning. Water purifying tablets which you will find in some of your first aid kits in aircraft will not make salt water fit to drink. They are not meant for this purpose. What they are meant for is clearing contaminated water. Should you come down in the desert and find a pool of water with green slime and a dead sheep in it these tablets will make that water fit to drink. They will not, however, remove the mineral salts from solution in sea water. Experimental work in this direction has been a failure so far. I may say that a lot of work is continuing on this subject for recovering drinkable water from the sea, but at the present moment, though some methods are promising, none have yet approached the usefulness of plenty of water to take with you. So now one asks is there anything that one can drink? The answer is YES. Urine is thoroughly worth drinking. There is a popular idea that urine is poisonous. I tell you this is not so. In lunatic asylum work one finds that the inmates cannot be prevented from drinking urine; they drink it in large quantities, like it, and it does them no harm. If you drink urine, you will augment your water supplies to a worthwhile extent. Roughly, if you can exist seven days without drinking urine, you would last for ten by drinking it, other things being equal, of course. As for swimming - don't do it. It involves muscular energy, the temperature of the body is not kept down for long, you swallow quite a lot of salt water, you use a lot of energy getting back into the boat. You also wash a layer of fat off you skin which tends to insulate the body. You also tend to leave a layer of salt crystals on the surface of the skin which draws water from the body. The utmost indulgence which may be allowed in this direction is to wet your cap from time to time and wear it wet. As for food supplies; if you feel you must have them, let them be as useful as possible. Useful foods are carbohydrates which do not require a lot of water for their mastication. In this respect ships biscuit, which has been the traditional food for distressed mariners, can only be condemned. Large quantities of water are required to masticate and swallow this substance, and in point of fact it is almost never eaten by any survivors that I have ever heard of. Chocolate is also thoroughly bad for the same reason as it goes to a paste in the mouth which can neither be swallowed nor spat out. Fortunately in the new rations which have come out this year from the Admiralty and the Board of Trade this fact has been recognized and the biscuit and chocolate has been withdrawn. Good things to eat are boiled sweets, barley sugar and best of all CONDENSED MILK. Condensed milk is particularly good because it assists morale. I am not asking whether you believe me or not when I tell you that solid food is not necessary for the preservation of life up to a month, I am just starting a fact. But I am quite sure that the other people in the lifeboat with you won't believe it. If they have condensed milk to take, they will feel that they are getting something in the way of food. They all know that babies can live and thrive on a diet of nothing else but condensed milk; but the great thing is that condensed milk is largely water, and while you set the mind of the company at rest by giving them condensed milk you also augment their water supply. In the past condensed milk has not been available for this purpose because it goes off so badly when exposed to sunshine in tins. In about a year lashed to the side of a ship it deteriorates tot he extent of being uneatable. However, the manufacturers have now overcome this difficulty, and a considerable iron ration of condensed milk is now available for all ships in large quantities, and so you will probably find it at sea. I must severely criticize the provision of proteins in iron rations. These are unnecessary and definitely harmful. Pemmican, biltong, bully beef and Brand's meat essence tablets are all thoroughly bad things to take when you are starving. The reason is a little complicated to explain, but it has been known as a fact that it increases the body's requirements of nourishment while at rest very considerably. So much so that your chances of getting through may be reduced by a third after a good meat meal. I think I will leave the question of rations here and turn to another important matter, this time on the psychological side. Psychology I think you will agree with me that most people when they have been at sea (particularly in war stress) for any length of time go slightly mad. A small amount of "la cafard" is I think recognized in most of H.M Ships as being a necessary concomitant of war time conditions. This madness increases out of all knowledge at a very great speed when one is adrift in a small boat. This is a very serious matter indeed and accounts for a very great loss of life. I would point out to you that possibly the most 'famous last words' in the Navy and Merchant Service are "well, Bill, I'm going below now to wet the tea." You will find that phrase cropping up in any survivor's report. Long before you actually die of thirst apparently you go mad and destroy yourself, usually by stepping overboard while suffering from some delusion like this (remember the madness from drinking sea water). In one boat a life was lost quite unnecessarily by a man who saw some orange trees beside the boat, leaned over too far to pick an orange, fell into the water, and was taken by a shark. But a far greater loss of life occurs when the hallucination involves sighting a craft which is coming to the rescue. When such a craft is sighted all precautions are thrown to the wind; the last of the water supply is rapidly consumed, the precious pyrotechnics and sea markers are used to attract the attention of the crew of the ship or aircraft which exists only in the mind of the beholder. Survivors from the GLORIOUS saw a whole convoy passing close to them which in fact never existed. These hallucinations are most infectious, if one person sees them the whole company will. So a rule should be for the lookout never to make an itemized sighting report. He should be warned to saw that he has sighted an object, and then communicate in a whisper to the senior officer what he has seen, and where. It should be then for the officer to call on other people to look in that direction and describe what they see. If each person sees a similar object, some reliance may be placed on the sighting report, but if one sees a steamship, another an aircraft, and another one a submarine surfacing, the report should be treated with the suspicion it deserves. Hope While on the psychological side, it is essential never to give up hope. It is quite possible under these strange circumstances literally just to lie down and die and though I thoroughly recommend you to remain quietly at rest until you are picked up, let that rest be vigilant and the possibility of failure never for one moment entertained. In connection with this I would like to point out what happened in one Carley float from the GLORIOUS. There were three survivors. The one I spoke to was an elderly Stoker Petty Officer from the retired list. He had lived through his ordeal on the edge of the ice pack clad only in dungaree trousers and a cotton singlet. Of the 70 odd people who left the GLORIOUS in that float the first man to die was the Chaplain. The Chaplain of the GLORIOUS was a very well known character, a fine athlete, as fit a man as anyone could ever wish to see and was well liked and respected by everybody who knew him. The Petty Officer was asked if he could account for this extraordinary state of affairs and he gave as his reason with the utmost conviction that "the Padre was prepared to die - And I Was Bloody Well Not!" I think that Stoker Petty Officer had summed up in those few words the greatest thing there is in surviving. That you are BLOODY WELL NOT GOING TO DIE. Now to turn to another aspect of the case. Let us draw an object lesson from this same Carley float in which 70 odd men got away from the ship and only three were picked up alive after 76 hours adrift. Clothes They had mostly died of cold, and nobody ever thought of stripping the people who had died, before pushing them overboard. Don't ever make this stupid sentimental mistake. Rob the dead every time if it is going to help you to get through I am sure that it would be the dying wish of every one of them. This matter of clothes brings me to the next two points. First, try and be prepared for disaster occurring to your ship and have some warm abandon ship clothing by you at all times. It may mean saving your life. And remember, wet clothes are better than no clothes. Feet The next point is the matter of immersion feet. All too many survivors from disaster at sea are now crippled with this terrible condition. It seems to me that there is not really very much in being saved if after a year or two of agony you have to have both legs amputated in the end. Immersion feet is a condition akin in some respects to frostbite, and it is not yet fully understood. Its onset occurs sooner or later in boats and Carley floats particularly when your feet are being slopped by, or immersed in water. The feet turn white, swell and become numbed. After a while all sensation is lost and the feet are apparently dead. This may occur within 40 or 50 hours in the Arctic, while in the tropics its onset may be delayed for a fortnight or more. You can do little about it at the time once it has started, but you can do a lot to prevent it. It has been noticed that the onset is much delayed or even prevented entirely by wearing something - socks, shoes, sea boots, flying boots - in that order are the most helpful. Once the feet start to swell inside their covering the temptation to take the boots off should be resisted; for it will be found impossible to get them on again because the swelling is accelerated once the support of the covering is removed. I, therefore, consider that the tradition of removing one's shoes or boots before abandoning ship is thoroughly wrong. In this connection I would state that a Mae West will float you with flying boots or sea boots. If you don't believe me, try it for yourself. As a matter of fact it would be a very good thing as a routine if everybody who went to sea tested out his personal floatation gear with full clothing and heavy boots in a swimming bath before joining ship. They would sleep better for the experience gained. But supposing you have unfortunately sustained immersion feet. I would like to give you a few notes about the treatment of this condition which may save your feet for you. In most cases the chances are that you will be picked up by a small ship which does not carry a medical officer. If this is the case, do not let your rescuers do all the wrong things out of kindness of heart. First of all, do not under any circumstances stand on the feet in such a condition. I read an account recent of some brave rescued castaways who disdained a boson's chair for being hauled aboard and climbed up a ladder, walked across the deck to the bar of the wardroom. I can only say that these people deserved to lose their feet. The flesh on immersion feet will not stand pressure and quite literally the bones will COME THROUGH THE SKIN without your feeling it until later. So the thing to do if your feet are numbed is to INSIST on being hoisted aboard in a boson's chair and being CARRIED off the upper deck. The next thing to prevent is being carried below to the boiler room where the Captain will take you if you will let him. In the boiler room your feet will be warmed up in front of a boiler while they are rubbed by two of the strongest stokers available. This also will literally RUB THE FLESH OFF THE BONES. The correct procedure is to warm your feet up very slowly. In hospital, a temperature of between 49 and 50 degrees Fahrenheit is found to be the most useful temperature for saving damaged feet. Try and imagine what a temperature of 49 degrees is. It is not a long way above freezing (32 degrees F.) - far too cold for bathing in anything like comfort. So if you are in a nice warm cabin, don't wrap your feet up - if necessary stick them out of the scuttle and let the Atlantic gale outside warm them up, or better still, have your body wrapped up in plenty of blankets and lie in the lee of the deckhouse until sense returns to the feet. The feet should not in any circumstances be covered up with blankets. A rough rule for knowing when your feet are being thawed out too fast is by the increase in pain. Thawing out immersion feet is a very painful business at any time. If they are warmed up too fast the pain becomes absolutely unbearable. If such a condition occurs, cool them off again by re-immersion in cold water until he pain becomes more reasonable. It may take some days of this sort of thing before the feet again become comfortable, but unless you insist on this procedure being carried out you stand a very good chance of losing your feet. In this connection I would point out that it is a regrettable fact that by no means every medical officer at sea today is aware of the correct treatment and care of immersion feet, so don't believe what the doctor says unless his advice is compatible with what I have just told you. It is not for me to teach you boat's discipline, but I would point out that no rules are any use unless you can enforce them.. so a revolver and the determination to use it are quite important possessions. It may be fatal to everyone should a rough and tumble develop, as you can see from what I have said. This concludes the few simple rules that I have put together for your assistance if you are ever unfortunate enough to become a castaway, and I can only express the hope that the advice will never be of any use to you. Back to Cry Havoc #29 Table of Contents Back to Cry Havoc List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2000 by David W. Tschanz. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com